Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 1330.

Prayers.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

SPECIAL EDUCATION

Mr Daigeler: On 27 June 1990, Richard Johnston, the then member for Scarborough West and now NDP-appointed chair of the Council of Regents, strongly supported in this House my efforts to speed up changes to the special education act. In particular, I asked that school boards be allowed to provide educational services to developmentally handicapped pupils beyond the age of 21. At the time, the then Minister of Education, the member for Renfrew North, promised that appropriate reforms would be introduced in the fall.

We all know that the government has changed since then, but my interest and concern for this matter has not. I have been informed that the Ottawa-Carleton four-board co-ordinating committee for the developmentally handicapped has recently petitioned the minister to fund a post-21 education pilot project in the Ottawa area.

I urge the minister to give speedy approval to this request and to be consistent with the NDP's position when it was the official opposition. Richard Johnston upbraided the Liberal Minister of Education last June by saying, "The minister knows that by delaying action on special education reforms, he is taking away the right to an education." The new government has a strong moral responsibility to carry through with its own party promises. Reforming the special education act is one of these, and I expect the minister to honour the NDP's commitment to the more vulnerable members of our society.

YOUNG DRIVERS

Mr Jackson: Last week was a week of mourning in Burlington. Last Tuesday, Christopher Evans, John Newby, Jodi Robins and Scott Grenier were all killed when their car went out of control on 1 Sideroad between Guelph Line and Walker's Line. Two days later, Carly MacNeil was killed and four others injured in a similar accident near Milton.

Death is always a tragedy, but the death of young people who are only beginning to experience the fullness of life comes as an especially acute shock. That shock is being experienced first and foremost by the families of the victims and by their school friends. I would like to take this opportunity to extend the sincerest condolences of all members of this House to the grieving families and friends of those five young people, whose memory will never be forgotten by the community of Burlington.

This tragedy has also focused our collective concern by asking the question, why? I would also like to echo the call of the Halton Regional Police and the association, PRIDE, People to Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere, for tougher driving laws, including graduated driver's licences and limited-to-daylight driving for young drivers, which would help prevent future such tragedies.

Forty per cent of all those killed on our highways are teenagers. I call on the provincial government to move ahead quickly with legislation which would ensure that young people are allowed to drive alone only when they have achieved sufficient levels of experience and responsibility behind the wheel. Such legislation will indeed be a fitting memorial to the Burlington youths whose tragic deaths will have at least served to provoke needed legislative action on behalf of all young drivers in the province of Ontario.

JOHN STOREY

Mr B. Ward: I am very pleased to rise today to recognize John Storey, a lifelong resident of Brantford. Mr Storey is not a celebrity, a famous business person, a politician or a labour leader and as a result will not have a building, a bridge or a city street named after him. Mr Storey is a working person who raised a family in Brantford and, like all working people, did the best job he could for the many years he worked on the shop floor of Gates Rubber.

The reason I am honouring Mr Storey today is to give him the recognition he deserves for the years of volunteer service he gave to his union, the International Rubber Workers, and to the community of Brantford. Mr Storey spent many years on the health and safety committee in an effort to improve working conditions for his union brothers and sisters. He was a regular participant at the union local meetings and is always willing to support other workers during labour disputes.

Mr Storey's involvement in our community is quite extensive. He was co-chair of Brantford's wonderful 1967 centennial parade. His efforts resulted in the restoration of Brantford's oldest fire engine for public display. Since 1983, Mr Storey has worked towards improving Brantford's waterfront. He is currently a member of the Mohawk Lake task force, a community group working towards the cleanup of Mohawk Lake.

Mr Storey recently retired from his job and is now working with his fellow seniors to improve their quality of life. He has never sought public recognition, but I want the people of Ontario to know that I am proud to call John Storey my friend. To John I say: "Tend your garden, have a cold beer and enjoy your retirement, my friend. You have earned it."

ASSISTANCE TO FARMERS

Mr Cleary: I would like to spend a few moments this afternoon talking about the NDP's record on agriculture and its continuing effort to figure out which end of the cow is which.

In March we heard the Minister of Agriculture and Food and the Treasurer say that farmers would have to wait for over a month, until the budget, for news on an interest rate relief program but, under pressure from farm groups and the opposition, the NDP changed its mind and announced a program in the beginning of April.

At the spring cabinet meeting with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the Minister of Agriculture and Food told the farmers that the NDP had done enough for farmers and there would be no provincial commitment to the net income stabilization account program this year. This was in contradiction to the support he announced for the program in the fall.

Then later in the session, the minister did another about-face and announced a limited commitment to the net income stabilization program. It is obvious that the minister continues to be left out standing in the field when it comes to agriculture.

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OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

Mr Turnbull: Since being elected as Ontario's first socialist Premier, the Premier has succeeded in a record number of flip-flops. The most recent and dramatic example was last Thursday when our Premier, applying his principle of "If you don't like these standards, I have others," stretched the credibility of his Spandex guidelines to the breaking point.

In April, his rejection of the position of vice-patron of the Royal Canadian Military Institute was just another of a growing list of royal snubs but, unlike his earlier unexplained absence from the Queen's birthday parade, the Premier at least had the good sense to reconsider and reverse his decision. I wonder if he first discussed it with his new adviser, the member for Brant-Haldimand, and received his recommendation.

Since this is the flip-flop Premier, I wonder if he might now consider flipping his biggest flop and reverse his government's controversial decision to remove the oath to the Queen required of all new police officers.

SENIOR CITIZENS

Mr Frankford: As members are aware, the city of Scarborough has a population that, like the province in general, is multicultural and increasingly elderly. I am glad to inform the House of some initiatives in Scarborough East to address the population's future needs.

Seven Oaks is a Metropolitan Toronto home for the aged which has a certain number of beds for Armenians. This is an excellent approach to make individuals feel comfortable, with the assistance of care givers and volunteers who know their language and customs.

Masaryktown is a co-operative housing project that has just been opened, where a number of Czechoslovak seniors will be living.

The Momiji Health Care Society is a non-profit organization that is concerned with the health care of seniors of Japanese origin. It is constructing an apartment building for seniors in my riding. Two floors of the building will be for health-related amenities, and they plan to offer facilities for care of the broader community outside.

The announcement by the Minister of Community and Social Services about long-term care last week has been warmly welcomed. I am sure it will be of great help to voluntary community organizations such as these that have taken initiatives in providing housing, and I am pleased to note that the minister stated priority would be given to develop support programs in co-operation with non-profit housing. We can look forward to the provision of necessary support services while seniors continue to live in settings that understand their language and culture.

I would also like to recognize at this time the work and resources that volunteers in these organizations have put into these projects.

MICHAEL SMITH

Mr Miclash: I rise in my place today to praise the efforts of one of my constituents. Michael Smith, a student here in Toronto, hails from Kenora and, under the direction of coach Andy Higgins, has proven himself as one of the world's top athletes in the toughest track and field event, the decathlon.

Some of the members will remember when I introduced Michael here in the Legislature some two years ago. At that time he was recognized as an up and comer in the world of sports. Today he is ranked as one of the world's top three in this event.

The decathlon is a 10-event, two-day contest. In the first day, the events include the 100-metre run, the long jump, shot put, high jump and the 400-metre run. On the second day, it is the 110-metre hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and the 1,500-metre run.

This past Sunday, Michael became the first North American to win the decathlon championship in Austria when he scored 8,427 points in this event. This 23-year-old native of Kenora is beginning a historic trek to become the world's best. Over the summer he will continue to prepare for the world championships in Tokyo next September.

Even though he has yet to return home, might I ask the members of the House to join with me in congratulating this fine young athlete.

LAGOON CITY

Mr McLean: My statement is directed to the Minister of the Environment. I am pleased to see the Premier here, and I wish he would listen closely.

It has been brought to my attention by a large group of citizens in my riding of Simcoe East that this government, and the Minister of the Environment in particular, has steadfastly refused to listen to their concerns or even to acknowledge their existence. The situation concerns the development of Lagoon City, an urban resort town on the east shore of Lake Simcoe. A constituent who represents a cottage association has requested an environmental designation of the development under the auspices of the Environmental Assessment Act. This is his democratic right, and this party supports and encourages such participation in the public process.

However, this designation request represents only one point of view from my riding. There is a large and growing body of the community that understands the dramatic impact that an environmental designation of Lagoon City would have upon the social and economic fibre of Mara township.

A letter, dated 25 January 1991, was sent to the Minister of the Environment from the president of the local community association, representing nearly 4,000 residents. The minister refused to even acknowledge its correspondence. A follow-up letter, dated 24 May, was sent and so far there has been no acknowledgement. Since that time, copies of letters to the minister and the Premier have been pouring into my office. To date there has not been the slightest acknowledgement of the concerns of my constituents.

I want to say to the minister that they want to meet her and want to discuss this with her. I have sent a letter asking for that request. Will she acknowledge it and meet with these constituents?

PIGEON LAKE ENVIRONMENTAL ASSOCIATION

Mr Drainville: I would like to take this opportunity to comment on the significant accomplishments of the Pigeon Lake Environmental Association. This wonderful group of constituents has worked very hard and it has been in existence for only just a year. They have done a great deal to raise public and political awareness of important issues relating to the quality of the environment in their own community.

Pigeon Lake is part of the Trent-Severn waterway and is a major attraction for boaters and cottagers as well as those who make their permanent homes in the region. The Pigeon Lake Environmental Association has raised concerns about the quality of water, the adequacy of environmental safeguards and planning and development in the area and has made a major contribution to upgrading and restoring the shoreline. It was instrumental in arranging for 1,000 trees from the Kawartha Region Conservation Authority to be planted along the shore. Another project of the association has been the effort to protect Boyd Island as park land and as a wildlife sanctuary. TVOntario will be airing a documentary on Pigeon Lake that was the result of another association effort.

As I have illustrated, this hardworking and ambitious group of environmental activists is having a strong and positive impact on the community and setting a laudable example for other community groups, not only in Victoria-Haliburton but throughout the province.

VISITORS

The Speaker: I invite all members to welcome to our assembly this afternoon a delegation from the Midwestern Legislative Conference of the United States, seated in the Speaker's gallery. It is headed by Representative Corliss Mushik of North Dakota, vice-chair of the MLC. He is accompanied by the Honourable Robert F. Griffin, Speaker of the Missouri House; Senator Bill Hutchins, majority leader of the Iowa Senate; and Senator Roger Moe, Minnesota majority leader. Would you please join me in welcoming our guests to the assembly.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Hon Mr Cooke: There are many individuals and organizations in our communities working for people who need safe, secure and affordable housing. We applaud the dedication of these groups, which we view as our partners, and recognize that they need resources to continue their good work.

That is why our government is committing $3.7 million this year to help them help themselves. I am pleased to announce a new, innovative program today called Partners in Housing. This program will mean continued support for community-based non-profit and co-operative housing groups as well as continued support for housing advocates striving to increase community acceptance of affordable housing. In addition, Partners in Housing will now expand this funding beyond the non-profit sector to groups that work on behalf of tenants living in private sector housing.

The grants will be allocated for a wide range of activities. For example, a tenant group might decide to operate a telephone information service that gives tenants the knowledge and direction they need to secure their rights. Funding may also be provided for conferences or workshops where people can share their ideas on how the rights of tenants can be enforced. Challenging discriminatory rental practices in the private and public sector is another worthwhile way community groups may use these grants.

I am pleased to say the $3.7 million in grant money is the most funding ever made available for these types of services. Partners in Housing will enable community groups and municipalities to continue working for affordable housing and partnership with our government. I believe this initiative is another example of our government's commitment to move towards greater social and economic equity for all. I am pleased that the government of Ontario is assisting these worthwhile efforts.

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POLANYI AWARDS

Hon Mr Allen: University research in the sciences and in the humanities plays a vital role in helping to develop and sustain the province's social, economic and cultural wellbeing. Through university research, new and innovative ways of solving problems are found, opportunities are created and the human condition is enriched.

Five years ago, the research of one man at the University of Toronto gained worldwide acclaim. That man is Dr John Charles Polanyi. One reward for his dedicated research was the honour of being named co-recipient of the Nobel prize in chemistry.

In 1986, to commemorate Dr Polanyi's great achievement, the Ontario government established the John Charles Polanyi prizes. The Polanyi prizes recognize academic excellence and are awarded to students who are pursuing their post-doctoral studies at an Ontario university. The prizes are presented in the academic disciplines for which the Nobel prizes are awarded -- physics, chemistry, literature, physiology and medicine and economic science. Each award consists of a $15,000 cash prize.

Since the inception of the award, 17 exceptionally talented young men and women have been chosen to receive this prestigious prize. Today, it is my great pleasure to announce the selection of four more outstanding scholars who will be added to this list. They will have the distinction of being the recipients of the 1991 Polanyi prizes.

They are Dr Richard Burgess, of the department of classical studies at the University of Ottawa, who receives the prize in literature for his work in reinterpreting literary-historical texts of late Roman antiquity; Dr Warren Piers, of the department of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Guelph, who receives the prize in chemistry for his work in organometallic chemistry; Dr Douglas Tweed, of the department of physiology and ophthalmology at the University of Western Ontario, who receives the prize in physiology and medicine for his contributions in mathematical modelling in the neurosciences; and Dr Lawrence Widrow, of the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, who receives the prize in physics for his work in cosmology.

I am sure all of my colleagues in the House will share with me in offering congratulations to these four very worthy recipients of the Polanyi prizes and in wishing each one of them continued success in their academic careers.

POLITICAL ACTIVITY BY POLICE OFFICERS

Hon Mr Farnan: I am pleased to inform this House that my ministry is releasing a discussion paper today called Political Activity Rights for Police Officers in Ontario. We hope that the input of interested parties and affected groups, through this discussion paper, will help us develop regulations that will best serve the needs of the police and the public.

Ultimately, the regulations we will develop with both public and police input will strike a balance between the rights of all Ontarians to receive the same high degree of impartial and politically neutral policing services they have come to expect and the rights of individual police officers as members of their communities.

The evolving roles of police officers in their communities are recognized by the provisions of the new Police Services Act. Its regulations support the premise that the police operate as part of their community, not apart from their community.

In conjunction with this, one of the key issues we will be examining will deal with political activity rights for police officers when they are off duty and out of uniform. Previous legislation did not address this issue of political activity for municipal police officers.

In the absence of legislated regulations on political activity for municipal police officers, some municipal police services developed policies on permissible political activities while others did not. This resulted in widely varying local practices with respect to political activity for municipal police officers across the province. New regulations will clarify and guarantee their political rights while ensuring province-wide consistency and fairness.

Political activity rights of all police officers in Ontario, municipal and OPP, will be addressed by our discussion paper. This is in keeping with our objective to develop, in parallel with the Human Resources Secretariat, a legislative framework that will apply fairly and equally across the province.

This consultative process will take place at the same time the Human Resources Secretariat examines political activity rights for crown employees. This will ensure consistency in our approach to these two situations. We will also consider the impact of the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision regarding political activity for federal public servants.

The role of police in Ontario is a special one. Their performance is an essential component in the quality of life we all enjoy in this province. That is why the tradition of politically neutral police service must be preserved and protected.

I invite all interested Ontarians to participate in this consultative process. This discussion paper is a public document and we welcome all written submissions to my ministry up until Friday 19 July 1991.

RESPONSES

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Ms Poole: We welcome today the announcement by the Minister of Housing that he is continuing the Liberal government programs regarding housing advocacy. However, I must say I am somewhat surprised that the minister is calling this a new initiative. It is a new name -- members should not get me wrong; we like the new name -- but it is definitely not a new initiative.

In fact, what the minister is announcing today is a continuation of three Liberal programs which have successfully helped tenants reach a level playing field and successfully helped to combat the not-in-my-backyard syndrome. We very much support those goals. We also very much support the increased funding the minister has announced today, but it is almost two full months since the government brought in its budget and daily we have been awaiting an announcement by the Minister of Housing on what he intends to do with building non-profit housing.

Now is the time to do it. The construction industry is in disarray. We could build non-profit housing for the most cost-efficient amount of dollars and yet the questions still beg to be asked. The minister has not told us whether the Homes Now program is on track. Is he going to be able to build the 30,000 units he has promised by the 30 September deadline? Is the minister going to be able to build the 10,000 units he promised this year? What are the answers? We are waiting to hear them.

POLANYI AWARDS

Mr Daigeler: I join the Minister of Colleges and Universities in congratulating the recipients of this year's Polanyi awards. It is always a great pleasure to see successful researchers in this province and to acknowledge with special recognition by the province their important work for future innovation in Canada.

I must say I was also pleasantly surprised that the new government is still supporting the idea of some financial reward for excellence in education. Perhaps the government has had a change of heart and mind. I hope the Minister of Education perhaps is going to follow that example with regard to the Ontario scholarships, because there too I think we need recognition for excellence, and excellence in education in particular.

I would like to say to the minister, though, that I was quite frankly expecting a very different announcement. If the minister would listen for a moment. The universities have been waiting for some two months now for the announcements with regard to capital construction. When is he coming forward with those announcements? We have two weeks left in this House and the universities are getting very nervous with regard to the intentions of the minister.

I would also like to say, surtout pendant cette semaine qui est très importante pour les francophones de cette province, qu'on s'attendait à l'annonce d'une installation permanente pour la Cité collégiale à Ottawa. On n'a encore rien entendu du ministre ; j'espère bien que, au cours des deux semaines qui nous restent, il y aura une annonce à cet égard.

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POLITICAL ACTIVITY BY POLICE OFFICERS

Mr Curling: Any effort by the Solicitor General to do any kind of work is always welcome. I ran into the House today hoping he was going to bring about many of the regulations that are outstanding and save that for consultation. Therefore I welcome this part of it. I hope that he is consistent, that he will bring forward all the other regulations that are so long awaited and be open for discussion and for the public to see.

Yesterday I was a guest speaker at a recruiting of new police officers, and they spoke about the separation and the neutral aspect of keeping away from political interference in the justice system. I emphasize that. I hope the minister and his party can continue to exercise that type of strategy. We are very disappointed this is not the indication and this is not the intent of his party. We want real consultation. We hope that this time it is not a sham like what they have done in the past, that they have opened it up and not shut other people out from consultation.

We look forward to the other regulations that are so long awaited. I ask the minister: Where are these regulations? I know it is important that we have police officers participate in the political process in a very neutral way. What about the other regulations that are so important, of enforcement, of use of force by officers -- things that are awaited by the community? I am extremely disappointed. The minister is dragging himself slowly. We need the other regulations and we need the consultation to be real consultation.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Mr Turnbull: I am responding today to the announcement by the Minister of Housing. In his statement he says he is proud of the fact that it is the most money ever allocated.

It is quite obvious that this is the most confusing legislation that has come forward, that they are expecting they are going to need the most money and that there are going to be the most court challenges.

It seems unfortunate that the minister cannot grasp the fact that we have people in this province who are paying 40% and 50% of their gross household income in rent. Instead of addressing the core problem of those people being able to afford their rent, the government is tinkering away with the system and supporting groups which should not need funding. People should be able to have fair housing and affordable housing, but it will never happen under this government because it believes in blanket legislation which helps people who are paying an average of 17% of their gross family income instead of helping those most in need.

I ask the minister what quality criteria he is expecting to have and what the political affiliations of these advocates will be. This is the minister who has said he is allergic to landlords. I think he should be ashamed of himself and consider that we should have some equality in the system and have some fairness towards both tenants and landlords.

POLANYI AWARDS

Mrs Cunningham: It is not often that we have the opportunity to stand up in this House to speak in honour of one of Canada's Nobel prize winners such as Dr Polanyi from the University of Toronto, who won the prize in chemistry.

I will say also it is that person who is most upset with this country and this province, because of course we do not respect, honour or support the research and development necessary for Canada and Ontario to be competitive in the world. It is young people who are missing out.

Today we honour some of those young people who have chosen to stay in this province to do post-graduate research. We honour Dr Richard Burgess, Dr Warren Piers, Dr Douglas Tweed from the department of physiology and opthalmology at the University of Western Ontario -- a special one for myself -- and Dr Lawrence Widrow. We wish them the very best in their future studies.

We would also remind the minister that we have given him some specific advice on where he can move in order to support the research and development so necessary to the economics of this country.

We ask him to take a look at the WISE award for women in science and engineering. We ask him to take a look at the teacher training in this province. We ask him to take a look at skills development and apprenticeship programs that should be offered to our young people. Above all, we ask him to take a look at the reasons why young people are not as interested in science and mathematics as we would hope they would be. We share those views and our concerns with the Minister of Education.

POLITICAL ACTIVITY BY POLICE OFFICERS

Mr Carr: I am pleased to rise and talk about the statement by the Solicitor General. I too am pleased that we are going to be having some discussions on this issue.

One of the concerns I have, though, is that this process may end up like what happened during the standing committee on finance and economic affairs. The submissions were piled, as I said yesterday, as high as the Treasurer, and yet when the budget came out the government completely ignored them. Everything that was done was completely ignored. I hope that will not happen with this discussion paper.

I hope 30 days will be long enough to do it, because when we look at the activity of this government over the last little while, when the police forces across this province do get involved in political activity, it will certainly be against this government.

Everything the government has done has been against the police forces, from the oath to the Queen to the appointment of people like Susan Eng, who has been critical of the police in this province. What the police forces in this province will be looking forward to is for the first time consulting on some substantial issues where the government actually listens, not like in the finance and economics committee where the submissions are piled this high, all the submissions come in and then the government does what it wants anyway.

We want real consultation where the government listens to the people of this province. If it does that, we will be happy. We are going to be there following each step of the way to make sure it happens and to make sure the police in this province are representative of what is going to go on in the next period of time in this province.

POLANYI AWARDS

Mr Jackson: When the Minister of Colleges and Universities invokes the name of Professor Polanyi on behalf of the academic community in this province, we ask the government to reconsider the fact that it is sitting on $40 million of research money given to it by the federal government from the pharmaceutical manufacturers of Canada. That is $10 million for four universities, and the government puts it into general revenues.

Put it into research. That is what the professor would say if he were in the House.

CONFLICT-OF-INTEREST GUIDELINES

Mr Sorbara: Mr Speaker, I rise today on a matter which I believe to be both a point of order and a point of privilege in this House, and I want to bring it to your attention at this point.

If you will notice in the business of the day for today, the standing committee on administration of justice, of which I am a member, is to meet this afternoon to consider the Premier's conflict-of-interest guidelines.

That committee met yesterday as well, and at that meeting a motion was moved by a government member which I believe to be both a violation of my privileges as a member of this House and a violation of the standing orders.

Just as a matter of preface, I would remind you that the business of conflict of interest and the issues that have been raised in this House over the past several months have been central to what we have been debating here. Indeed, another couple of matters were raised on Thursday which had the Premier, in response to a question from my leader, say as follows:

"I have already made it clear what I hope will happen. The matter of the guidelines has been referred to a committee. It has been discussed in a committee. I have made it clear in answers on a number of occasions that I am looking forward to a report with respect to the general question of guidelines and conflict-of-interest law."

Earlier in the day he had said, "I have asked for the advice of the standing committee on administration of justice."

The Premier himself testified before that committee, and since that time we have not yet had an opportunity to review the guidelines clause by clause. We have not yet had an opportunity to review the very letter the Premier sent before the committee as evidence. We have not yet had an opportunity to review the recommendations submitted to the committee by Mr Justice Gregory Evans, who is the Conflict of Interest Commissioner, and we have not yet had an opportunity to consider alternatives to the guidelines.

Seemingly the direction that we would like to take is the very direction that the Premier has asked us to take. Nevertheless, yesterday during the deliberations of the committee, a motion was moved that is without precedence in this House and the committees of this House. The motion was in the following terms: That the committee vote today -- that would be yesterday -- on recommendations for the report, which was the first point; that the draft final report be drafted and sent out by Thursday of this week, which was the second point; and that the report be finalized and dissenting reports be due on Monday 24 June. That is next Monday.

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Mr Speaker, I refer you to section 128 of our standing orders. Section 128(c) reads as follows: "Every member shall be permitted to indicate in a report that he or she dissents from a particular recommendation or comment within the report. The committee shall permit a member to express the reasons for such dissent within its report."

That provision is the basis upon which each of us as a member of a committee has a right to consider a report and in due course submit a dissenting opinion. My privileges as a member of that committee are being constrained and eliminated by virtue of the fact that the government, we believe, intends to move today a motion which would require the Liberal and Conservative members of the committee to submit a dissenting report by next Monday.

I would submit that a requirement and a deadline for dissenting reports is a violation of the provisions of section 128(c), that it is out of order and inappropriate to be moved, and that an attempt by the government to close off discussions on the conflict-of-interest guidelines in order to not permit us to fully examine the guidelines and the situations that have given rise to allegations of conflicts in the committee is in direct contradiction to what the Premier said he wanted from that committee. It is in contradiction to what we as members of this Legislature have a right to do as members of the committee, to the standing orders which govern our responsibilities and duties as members of that committee, and to my privileges as a member.

This Parliament has been plagued with allegations of conflicts of interest since it began several months ago. Now we have a set of guidelines to consider the regulation of those conflicts. The government members, seemingly at the direction of the Premier, seem to want to close off discussion on the very matters that have been so embarrassing to this government.

I ask you, Mr Speaker, for two things. I ask you for a direction and a ruling that a motion of that sort is out of order because it violates section 128(c) of the standing orders. I ask you as well for a ruling that an attempt by the government members to close down discussion of the conflict-of-interest guidelines, as they are doing by way of the motion they moved yesterday, is a violation of the privileges of the members of that committee.

Interjection.

The Speaker: Just a moment. Would the members take their seat, please.

Interjection.

The Speaker: If the member for St George-St David would just relax, before entertaining any other submissions which members may have, I tell you quite candidly that it is very helpful if the Speaker is able to hear the matters which are brought to his attention. It was quite difficult through part of the submission by the member for York Centre to hear what he was saying. If there is additional information which members wish to draw to my attention related to this matter, I would be pleased to hear it.

Mr Harnick: I can tell you, Mr Speaker, that I was in the committee yesterday. My friend the member for York Centre was not.

[Applause]

Mr Harnick: Is the clapping finished now?

Everything he says is factually accurate. Mr Speaker, I can tell you --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. The member for Willowdale has additional information.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. I realize there is a concerted effort to be pleasant by all members. Right now, the one member I wish to hear from is the member for Willowdale and no other.

Mr Harnick: I can tell members that the standing committee on administration of justice has been mandated to review the conflict-of-interest guidelines. The conflict-of-interest guidelines have been regurgitated back in the exact form they were given in a preliminary report.

There has been no clause-by-clause review of those guidelines. While we disagree philosophically whether they should be part of legislation or remain guidelines, we have never reviewed the guidelines on a clause-by-clause basis and we have never reviewed the letter of the Premier that was tabled with the committee. We have never so much as looked for a moment into the Members' Conflict of Interest Act. We have never looked at the amendments to the conflict of interest act recommended by the Conflict of Interest Commissioner, who attended on two occasions as a witness. All of that work remains to be done.

With that in mind, yesterday we were faced with a motion. The gist of the motion was that at yesterday's session we were to complete a review of the guidelines merely reciting the evidence of witnesses who appeared and recommending acceptance of the various sections holus-bolus without any further consideration into the real crux of the matter. We were told that had to be done by yesterday and that the opportunity for the opposition parties to prepare a dissenting opinion would be limited. We would have the opportunity of seeing the majority report on 24 June, and we would have two days after that time to prepare a minority report, because we were advised yesterday that the report would be tabled with this Legislature on the 26th or 27th.

There was no advance warning that the motion would be brought. Clearly it is an abuse of the privileges of the opposition parties. I suspect it is not an abuse of the privileges of the government because most of the members sitting on that committee have no idea what is going on with this anyway. They have absolutely no understanding of what it contains. They have a mandate --

Interjection.

The Speaker: Order.

Mr Harnick: Well, I will be fair. To be perfectly fair, their mandate is to finish this off as quickly as possible and not make any recommendations with respect to these guidelines.

I remind members we are not dealing with legislation. We are dealing with guidelines. We have been mandated to review those guidelines and to comment.

Mr Scott: We want to hear Evelyn.

Mr Harnick: The member will hear the member for Ottawa Centre.

The opposition parties want to review these guidelines. We want to prepare minority reports. We are being precluded from the proper opportunity to do that by the time constraints that have now been imposed upon us. Our privileges as members clearly have been abused.

The Speaker: Your avid interest is duly noted.

1420

Ms Gigantes: Mr Speaker, on the point of order, I became a member of the justice committee, which was seized of the matter of the Premier's conflict-of-interest guidelines some three to four weeks ago. At that stage the committee had proceeded so far in its work, having heard testimony from many witnesses, including the commissioner, the Premier and several members of cabinet, that it had reached the point of having a draft report.

When the Speaker considers this motion, I hope he will look back over the proceedings of the committee -- those many, many weeks of its work -- and I will also ask him to draw note in his own mind to the fact that the member from York Centre suggested to us that having dealt with the matter of divestment, which was the preoccupation of members of the opposition, we should now simply go ahead, finish dealing with the draft report and members opposite would be pleased to write dissenting reports.

What seems to be in contention is the number of days when, having completed a draft report in terms of committee work, they would have time to prepare a dissenting report. I suggest that under the rules of order within committee, if they find four or five days too little time to express their dissent from the report, perhaps they would like to amend the motion and we could proceed with the business in the committee.

Mr Bisson: That would be an excellent idea.

The Speaker: No. I have heard the point and I would appreciate members' attention for a moment.

First of all, I appreciate that --

Interjections.

The Speaker: I would appreciate the attention of all members, including the member for St George-St David. We are all happy that you are here.

I appreciate the fact that the member for York Centre raised this point outside of question period. The member may know that committees are to direct their own business. This matter quite properly should be brought to the attention of the committee concerned. The House can deal with matters brought to committees if the committees then bring a report on the procedural matter raised to the House. At that point the Speaker has a better opportunity to deal with the concerns raised. For the Speaker to do otherwise would be interfering in the work of committees, and that is not something you would want.

Hon Mr Cooke: Mr Speaker, a point of order --

The Speaker: I have dealt with this point of order. Is there another one?

Hon Mr Cooke: It is a question.

The Speaker: A question? No. Would the member take his seat. I have dealt with this matter. Is it another matter?

Hon Mr Cooke: We have dealt for 20 minutes with something that was not even supposed to be raised in the House. I would like to know how you as Speaker are going to take control of this place so that we are dealing with matters that are supposed to be dealt with in the House, and things that for committee are dealt with in committee. We just wasted 20 minutes.

The Speaker: To the Minister of Housing, let --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. I am painfully aware of the amount of time that is utilized on occasion. At the same time, members get very upset if the Speaker does not listen to their considered point of order.

Now, if we can move on with the business of the House, it is question period time.

Mr Elston: Mr Speaker, is it your will that we bring the government down today after that last challenge, or will we let it struggle for a little bit longer?

The Speaker: I would prefer a question placed.

ORAL QUESTIONS

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT

Mr Elston: I have a question for the Premier. It is related to the Metro youth task force report released yesterday. It paints a very bleak picture of alienation, violence and crime and shows a situation where young people feel there is no stake for them in their community or that the community does not care for them. While we might remark for a moment that the budget makes no mention at all of youth unemployment, I would like to indicate that the number of youths unemployed in this province has risen by some 31,000 in May over April 1991 to the staggering figure of 165,000. I want the Premier to tell us how many jobs his government has created for young people in Ontario under his budget.

Hon Mr Rae: The member may have a different view, but I think the public out there understands that because of the position we have taken as a government in terms of fighting the recession, there is more employment in the economy today than there would have been under any other government and under other circumstances followed by other parties. There is no question about that.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Mr Rae: I was interested in the comments the other day by Professor Galbraith, born in Elgin county and now the dean of the economics profession in the United States, who said this was the only government in North America that had chosen to fight the recession instead of slashing programs. We have increased programs for employment. We have set up the most major anti-recession package anywhere in North America and anywhere in Canada and we believe we have created more opportunities than there would have been under other governments and under other economic strategies suggested to us by the opposition and the federal government in Ottawa.

The situation is difficult; no one is happy with it at the moment, but as a government we are doing everything we can to fight unemployment and that is precisely the decision we made. Frankly, that is why we have a deficit. That is also why we have chosen not to fight this deficit on the backs of working families across the province.

Mr Elston: The Premier makes an interesting speech, but he does not get to the issue at hand. This year we have an increase of some 60% over last year's unemployment figures for youth in this province. We have 16.4% unemployment among young people. When that man stands here and says the government has increased programs, I read the following: 650 fewer students are being hired under the Environmental Youth Corps; 800 fewer students are being hired under the summer Experience programs; and 100 fewer people are being hired through the Junior Ranger program. When he talks about not cutting back, those are the real-life figures; those are the real-life cutbacks this government has foisted upon young people in this province.

I want to let the people know that the Premier is absolutely and utterly wrong when he talks about not cutting programs. He has done it at a time when he has taken away the $100 from the Ontario scholars and decided to give more money to all the powerful groups in Ontario. I ask this Premier why he shows so little interest and concern for the young people of this province who feel a new alienation, a lack of confidence in the community, a lack in the institutions and in that sense also in the New Democratic Party of this province. How can he not begin to move to increase the support for youth employment in this province?

Hon Mr Rae: I look forward to hearing the suggestions from the Liberal Party, but every time I hear a suggestion from a Liberal, I get it two ways: I get the Liberal here saying "Spend more and create more programs," and a Liberal over there saying: "Why is your deficit so high? Your deficit is too high." The Liberal Party has to make up its mind. Having contributed directly to the most serious recession we have faced since the 1930s, they now turn around and say, "Why aren't you spending more money?" Sometimes it is a little hard to take when we hear it from the Liberal Party.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Mr Elston: Here we have Peek-a-boo Bob at his best. He should run and hide. He does not want to face up to the problem his government has created. He has cut back on some 1,550 jobs for young people that would have been in place last year. At a time when recession has taken its toll, he has decided to increase tuition fees in universities by some 8%. He has decided to remove $100 from the Ontario scholars who would attend the university setting. He has done all that and then he took money and put it in the places where the powerful groups have directed him to put it. He has taken it from those people who are the very basis of our future growth and expansion in this province.

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Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Mr Elston: The plan of the New Democratic Party is to barrack so that we cannot ask our questions. While I can understand that they are afraid to hear the truth in this place, there are people who are alienated in a manner in which they have never been alienated before, and they must take care of the needs of our province.

The Speaker: And the interrogative part?

Interjections.

Mr Elston: Can I ask my question?

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. I am fully aware of what day of the week this is. All three groups have had their meetings this morning, everybody is excited, but I have to be able to hear the question and the response. Would the member for Bruce succinctly place his final supplementary.

Mr Elston: While there was no mention of assistance for the unemployed youth in the budget, and while the Premier has indicated he has had some kind of strategic scheme at hand to deal with unemployment problems, the most famous relation I have seen of strategic schemes is a general who described a strategic scheme to determine what a retreat really was.

The Speaker: And your supplementary?

Mr Elston: This man has retreated from his responsibilities. I want the Premier to tell us -- not to avoid the question, but to tell us -- what he is going to do about fulfilling the mandate of creating jobs for the young people of this province.

Hon Mr Rae: I think I have already answered that question, but what I would say to the member who just asked it is that I think what people are alienated from is politicians who speak out of both sides of their mouths, and that is what we have heard today from the Liberal Party of Ontario.

The Speaker: New question, the member for Mississauga North.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. Stop the clock, please. If it would be helpful for members to have a break for a few minutes in order to restore a commonsense approach to asking and responding to questions, then that certainly would be in order. I do not believe we can continue to conduct our business the way we have for the last little while today.

Interjections.

The Speaker: I think the members of this assembly are going to have to conduct things in a more orderly way. Otherwise, we cannot do the public business the way it deserves to be dealt with. If members will come to order, we will hear the member for Mississauga North with his question.

Mr Offer: As the Premier said, if there is increasing alienation caused by politicians speaking out of both sides of their mouths, then in the last while the Premier has become the king of that.

LABOUR RELATIONS

Mr Offer: My question is to the Minister of Labour. The minister will know that the labour community is asking why he backed down on Bill 70 and what that means for his proposed late changes to the Ontario Labour Relations Act. In fact, it was just six days after I brought, in my speech to this Legislature, the need for change to Bill 70, four changes together with the need for public consultation, that those changes were announced. But according to labour leaders, they were announced without any meaningful consultation. They in fact just dropped out of the sky as far as they were concerned.

The minister said that the original Bill 70 went through cabinet like a buzz-saw, but I think we see today a few toothmarks on his shelf where that buzz-saw seems to have gone right over him. Labour is starting to ask the question, is the minister an advocate for its cause or is he merely a backslider in terms of the proposed changes to the Labour Relations Act?

Hon Mr Mackenzie: I think the member has asked a fair question, but I would like to correct his chronological order of things, if I could. Before he asked those questions about whether we were listening or prepared to change Bill 70, I had already responded at least twice, once almost a week earlier, to the critic from the Conservative Party that we were taking a look at those questions that were being raised.

Mr Offer: I thank the minister for that very informative answer. We have to ask, what happened to the labour leaders when the minister announced the changes as to what is happening to the job creating sector with the proposed changes to the province's labour laws? No consultation took place; there was no advance warning, no opportunity for any input whatsoever. In fact, look at the newspaper headlines today: The Toronto Star reports, "NDP Accused of Frightening Business Off." The Globe and Mail talks about "'Unfriendly' Air Scaring Investors." The Toronto Sun reports, "NDP Not 'Listening' to Business."

Why can the minister not commit today to broadly based public consultations and hearings on those very important matters which have been brought forward through the Ontario Labour Relations Act consultation document? Why can he not commit today to broadly based consultation before legislation is introduced this fall?

Hon Mr Mackenzie: I want to tell the member, to continue with the first part of his question first, what we did in Bill 70 was simply listen to the concerns that were being raised out there in the community and respond to those concerns. I want to tell him also, as I think he already knows, that we have gone through only the first preliminary stage in terms of looking at Ontario Labour Relations Act amendments that are needed, but we will certainly be going through several stages further on that and we will be consulting with all of the parties involved before that legislation hits this House.

Mr Offer: The minister's words today do not follow through with what the actions are. There are business associations across this province that are very concerned with his action. They are saying that there is no real consultation, that they have not been brought into the consultation process, that they are effectively being shut out of very important proposals being brought forward with respect to the Ontario Labour Relations Act.

Every single bill that the minister introduced in opposition related to the Labour Relations Act is embodied in these 30 proposals. No less than 10 NDP policy resolutions, passed at its last convention, called for measures embodied in the 30 proposals. Access to employer property, contracting out, use of replacement workers, employer involvement in union certification -- this is the minister's particular personal agenda.

Business is saying that it has not been brought into the consultation process, that the consultation process has not been long enough, or wide enough and that the minister has clearly indicated that there is not going to be any further consultation prior to the introduction of legislation. Will he ensure today that those channels of consultation, of discussion with all people in this province, are wide enough and broad enough before introducing the legislation, or is he going to continue to follow the route he has taken with respect to Bill 70 by bringing in legislation and then rapidly backtracking? Which is it?

Hon Mr Mackenzie: I think the member simply knows that once again his outline of the events is not quite accurate. We have had one round of consultations at which both management and labour were asked to submit their views of the OLRB. That has been done. They have both had that opportunity. We have absolutely no legislation drafted as yet. That was the first round of it. We will be taking it the next steps, and we have consulted with the parties already. We will be consulting with them in future.

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NATIVE HUNTING AND FISHING

Mr Harris: I have another question for the Premier about his government's relationship with the justice system. Last week, a justice of the peace in Owen Sound adjourned charges against seven non-natives for fishing without a licence, citing, and I quote from the justice of the peace, "blatant discrimination on the part of the Ministry of Natural Resources." Justice of the Peace Ross Forgrave says that with regard to the treatment of natives and non-natives, when laying fish and game charges, "Obviously, there is a double standard."

This decision, if used as a precedent, means that none of the fish and game laws are enforceable against anybody for anything in our province. I would like to ask the Premier how he intends to respond to this serious legal precedent involving fish and game infractions in our province.

Hon Mr Rae: I am going to refer that question to the Minister of Natural Resources.

Mr Scott: Refer it to the Attorney General. He's the one who writes letters.

Hon Mr Wildman: I am sure the House will understand that I cannot comment specifically on the particular issue raised.

Mr Scott: Well, write him a letter.

Hon Mr Wildman: However, this is a very important issue and not one about which one should be facetious.

Mr Scott: I'm having a good time today.

The Speaker: Member for St George-St David, come to order, please.

Hon Mr Wildman: I do intend to deal with this question, because it is a very important one which deals with the justice system, with the management of the fish and game in this province and with racial issues.

This House is aware that there is an interim enforcement policy in effect. I have explained to the House very clearly how that policy works, and the leader of the third party knows what has been reported to the House in that regard. I will not repeat it.

The fact is that the comments made by the justice of the peace involved are being considered and we will respond in due course. I cannot deal with them right now, but it is incorrect to say that there is no enforcement. In fact, this House knows full well how these laws and regulations are being enforced.

Mr Harris: No one questions the right of natives to fish or hunt for food for community use. I have not heard that. What Justice of the Peace Ross Forgrave has cited is an apparent announcement by the Owen Sound MNR office that it recognizes the right of the Cape Croker reserve, and I am quoting from a front page article in the local newspaper, "to carry on commercial fishing without a licence and without any quota." It further states, "MNR has allowed the sale of native catch off-reserve, without a commercial licence or quota, in violation of the federal Fisheries Act and in violation of the Ontario Game and Fish Act, in order not to jeopardize negotiations with the natives."

We are not talking about personal consumption. We are talking about the illegal sale of tons of fish for commercial purposes. I would ask the minister, does he not understand the difference between his duty to respect legitimate native rights, as opposed to his duty to uphold laws in support of responsible resource management?

Hon Mr Wildman: There is no contradiction; the two are complementary. The point is that the interim enforcement policy announced in this House deals with the constitutional recognition of aboriginal rights to hunt and fish for food and for personal consumption, as the leader of the third party has indicated, but it also deals with those aboriginal communities that have a tradition of commercial activity that is integral to their way of life. It also points to the need to develop and negotiate agreements with those communities to ensure that there are proper rules so that the conservation of the resource is protected.

As the member knows, we are currently involved in negotiations with Cape Croker and we are very close to an agreement which will indeed control the commercial activity there. In the meantime, we are recognizing that the community is continuing to carry on the type of fishing it has done in the past.

Mr Harris: It is precisely because they are following the minister's policy that we are in trouble, because his policy has no foundation or basis in law. What we have here is political interference in the judicial process by the NDP government. The minister has not changed the law, which is within his power to do; he now is directing officers of the justice system to apply the law unequally. Decisions about who is charged and what is prosecuted are now being made by politicians and bureaucrats instead of the appropriate enforcement officials, who now find themselves in limbo.

The justice of the peace says it is discrimination and he will not take any decisions until he receives some direction. The conservation officer who laid the charges says he will not talk because, in his words, he is afraid of losing his job. The crown attorney, Brian Farmer, says: "I have requested confirmation from the regional crown attorney's office as to whether or not there are specific category persons who are to be dealt with differently. As of yet, I have not had an answer."

Does the minister really believe this is the proper way to be running our courts and enforcing our laws here in Ontario?

Hon Mr Wildman: That was a very long question. I will attempt to deal with each point as it was raised.

First, I categorically reject the view that this government is in any way improperly, directly or indirectly, interfering in the judicial system in this province. It is most unfortunate that these kinds of allegations are thrown around so easily in this House.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Mr Wildman: In regard to the other issues raised by the member, the question of whether there is interference is quite clear. Since 1986 in this province questions of investigations related to possible commercialization of the harvest of fish by aboriginal people have had a process which has been followed and continues to be followed in this government. That process involves a conservation officer who is carrying out his duty contacting the deputy minister and the senior staff to authorize special investigations with regard to commercialization. When those commercial investigations are authorized and conservation officers, carrying out those investigations and having gathered the evidence, believe charges should be laid, they again refer the evidence and the proposed charges to the deputy minister and the senior staff at the Ministry of Natural Resources for consideration, at which time the deputy minister will authorize the proceeding with charges or not.

The interim enforcement policy I announced in the House indicated clearly that at any time in this process the Attorney General could intervene to determine whether charges can be laid. There is no interference. The policy has not changed. We are continuing to enforce the regulations, keeping in mind treaty and aboriginal rights, which are guaranteed in the Constitution of this country.

Mr Harris: The minister seems to be the only one who believes that. The justice of the peace clearly believes there is discrimination and, on the basis of that, there is no way he can proceed with charges against anybody in this province, native or non-native.

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TAX INCREASES

Mr Harris: My second question is to the Treasurer. On 16 May the Treasurer met behind closed doors with Bob White and the auto manufacturers and agreed to rethink his gas guzzler tax. Since the gas guzzler tax is scheduled to come into effect in less than two weeks, will the Treasurer tell us today the fate of that tax? Has he changed his mind? What exactly is going to happen? The automobile manufacturers, the auto retailers, the potential purchasers, the Canadian Auto Workers would like to know.

Hon Mr Laughren: I appreciate the question. I just want to correct the impression the leader of the third party had, because I distinctly recall the door was open and nobody stumbled in to listen to our conversation, but it was not because the door was closed.

Since that time, a number of meetings have been held with the Treasury people, the representatives of the Canadian Auto Workers union, the Big Three automobile producers, the dealers and the environmental movement, because the member would know and support, I am sure, the fact that there was an environmental component to the gas guzzler tax.

Since that time, there have been a number of meetings which I think have been very positive, and at the appropriate time I hope to be able to make some kind of announcement. But I hasten to add that at this point we have nothing to announce on a change in the tax.

Mr Harris: The Treasurer will understand the uncertainty that exists right now. Is there going to be $1,200 on this vehicle two weeks from now or not? And delivery dates; surely the Treasurer indicated, I thought with good intent, that he was prepared to meet and consider whether this tax should go ahead. Aside from the fact that he would not do that when I raised it or when the automobile industry raised it, but when Bob White joined my campaign against this budget -- and I expect to see Bob White out on the front lawn at Queen's Park on the 27th as part of that fight -- then at least the Treasurer did meet.

The Motor Vehicle Manufacturers' Association and the Canadian Auto Workers both agree, they are united, that if the Treasurer's tax proceeds as he proposed there will be sales losses and job losses. Ken Harrigan, chairman of Ford, has confirmed jobs will be lost in St Thomas and Windsor. We know jobs will be lost in St Catharines as well.

Will the Treasurer not tell us, since this tax is coming in two weeks from now, if the Canadian Auto Workers, who may well be out in force on the front lawn in two weeks as they join the battle against this budget, can expect some good news from the Treasurer, and can they expect it shortly so we get rid of this confusion out there in the automobile industry?

Hon Mr Laughren: I want to make a couple of points. One is that I was not going to call in Bob White and talk to him until the leader of the third party insisted I do so. Second, I can tell the leader of the third party that my good friend George Peapples and Ken Harrigan and others from the manufacturers' industry have already expressed some degree of satisfaction with the consultative process. I just wanted to reassure the leader of the third party that in my opinion, despite some of the things you might read in the paper, I believe there has never been a government in this province that has consulted as much with the business community as this government has.

Mr Harris: It is me and my pal Bob White who are concerned here. We are concerned about Canadian Auto Workers' jobs in this province. The signal the Treasurer is sending out is that we are going to get some good news next week. I am sorry he could not announce that to us today.

Next 1 January there are scheduled 1.7-cent-a-litre gas tax increases to go into effect, gas and fuel taxes. Now that the Treasurer has agreed to reconsider the gas guzzler tax, I would like to ask him if he would agree, and if we can expect him to come to some consensus with all the border communities concerned about the hike in gas tax -- they say it is the main reason it drives people across the border in the first place -- with the truckers, the unionized workers in the trucking industry, the tourism industry, all of those concerned about the cost of living and the transport of goods around this province, and reconsider the 1.7-cent gas tax hike next 1 January?

Hon Mr Laughren: No. The issue of cross-border shopping is much more complex than the leader of the third party would lead us to believe. We did look at the whole question. Before the budget, when I was looking at the question of gas prices in northern Ontario, for example, I did think about the question of gas prices in the border communities. When I looked very carefully at the pricing of gas across Ontario, it became very difficult to come to grips with the whole problem of differential gas prices across the province, because in some cases the price is higher in southern or eastern Ontario than it is in northern Ontario.

On the question of gasoline as a cross-border shopping issue, I think the member would agree that is not the main reason people cross the border to shop. Also, the 1.7-cent increase would not in itself drive people across the border to shop. I personally think there is a bigger reason for cross-border shopping. There are several big reasons for cross-border shopping; one is the value of the Canadian dollar. Second, I do not believe setting up express lanes, which Otto Jelinek seems to want to do, is in any way the answer either.

Mr Bradley: I want to pursue the matter with the Treasurer of this tax on auto workers in Ontario. The Treasurer has given some hints that he might be considering moving from his original ill-conceived position, the one which was going to be so difficult for those who work in the automotive industry in Ontario, the one which brought labour and management together, and I give him credit for bringing labour and management together on this particular occasion.

Does the Treasurer now understand after consulting, as he says, with so many groups in our society, particularly those in the automotive industry, that with his ill-conceived tax -- whoever hatched it in the government -- the effect on the automotive industry was far greater than he anticipated, because it deals not only with those who assemble vehicles in Ontario but also with those who make parts in Ontario? Does he now understand that in the midst of the deepest recession since the 1930s, with unprecedented competition from offshore and the United States, the tax was ill-conceived, and is he now prepared to withdraw it?

Hon Mr Laughren: I think the former Environment minister should be fairer in his categorization of the tax. Any tax that concentrates on the preservation of non-renewable fuel and on the protection of the environment is not by nature an ill-conceived tax. I would have thought the former Minister of the Environment would also acknowledge the fact that not only were the manufacturers and the auto workers' union called in, but the environmentalists as well. I know that was a regretful case of just overlooking an important group out there in society by the member for St Catharines.

Just because we set up a working group that takes a look at a tax to see if there is a way of fine-tuning it, I do not think that means the original proposal was ill-conceived at all. It is an unfair categorization by the member.

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Mr Bradley: This is one case where I would be praising the member for Nickel Belt, the Treasurer, for retreating, and I would not be accusing him of retreating in this case, because I think it would be a good move to withdraw it.

Does the Treasurer not agree with me now, having listened to the environmental groups who had to kick the door in to get into his office because they were not initially consulted, that the best way to achieve good health in the automotive industry at the same time as the environmental goals that are set -- that is, of providing vehicles that have better fuel efficiency and better emissions -- is in fact to provide incentives for people to purchase new vehicles in the province of Ontario, which will have the better fuel standards and better emissions?

Hon Mr Laughren: I have been a partisan politician around here for some time, but I do regret the way in which the member puts his question, that as soon as we consult, as soon as we talk to the major players or stakeholders on an issue, suddenly it is a retreat or it was ill-conceived in the first instance. Now would the member make up his mind? Does he want this government to consult or does he not?

I keep hearing from members opposite that we should be doing more consultation. As soon as we sit down and consult, they tell us we are retreating or we are considering an ill-conceived tax. I think there is no question that we are determined to have concern for the environment and conservation as one of the hallmarks of this government, and we will never retreat from that principle.

BIOMEDICAL WASTE DISPOSAL

Mr Cousens: I have a question for the Minister of the Environment. Earlier this year during estimates I had a chance to raise the whole question about biomedical waste and the concern we have with some 16,000 tons of biomedical waste, which is human body parts, blood, needles, syringes, swabs and bandages. When I asked the minister about these concerns her answer was, "I am satisfied that the enforcement and operation of the regulations administered by my ministry are designed to protect the public and to protect the environment and that, if followed, will do that."

The presence of needles in Metropolitan Toronto's beaches from drug addicts and diabetics raises a much larger issue of pathological waste. Can the minister assure this House that the guidelines she talked about back in February in estimates are now being followed to the fullest extent possible?

Hon Mrs Grier: Obviously, they are not being followed by people who dispose of syringes and needles in parks and in public places. That is certainly a very serious issue and I share the concern of the member that it is inappropriate. I quite frankly am not sure that no matter what our guidelines said or how they were administered we could in fact overcome that particular issue. There has to be a strategy of the whole question of drug abuse, and I know my colleague is dealing with that.

On the question of biomedical waste generally, as I indicated in estimates, there are guidelines and there are policies within my ministry that are being reviewed since I was sworn in in October. We are working co-operatively with the Ministry of Health and I think there is a great deal that needs to be done before we have in place an overall and comprehensive system of dealing with biomedical waste in this province.

Mr Cousens: I appreciate the direction the minister is trying to take in her answer, because the whole question of biomedical waste does raise a number of serious questions and is a matter of concern to the public at large. Syringes and medical waste are a threat to life and are obviously not being handled in an environmentally sound fashion, but the monitoring systems for biohazardous waste are very much in question.

I have three questions. Can the minister assure the House that untreated blood is not going into the sewer systems? Can she assure the House that all biomedical waste from doctors' offices and labs and hospitals is being incinerated at facilities that meet Ontario's toughest environmental safety standards? Will she assure this House that all of Ontario's biohazardous wastes will be safely eliminated in Ontario and never exported outside of it?

Hon Mrs Grier: I think I see the direction in which the member's question is taking him, and that of course is the issue of the export of biomedical waste from the province of Ontario.

When I took office I found that 60% of the biomedical waste in this province was in fact being sent to jurisdictions beyond the province. I have been working co-operatively with the Ministry of Health to see how best we can establish across this province an infrastructure to deal with this problem, something that has been lacking in the past, that I think is long overdue for resolution, and that I am very happy to tell the member is going to be resolved in co-operation with other ministries.

JOB SECURITY

Mr Waters: My question is for the Minister of Community and Social Services. The minister will be aware of the concern that many employees of some of the larger institutions serving developmentally disabled people are facing about the security of their jobs. They are afraid that with the movement of persons with developmental handicaps to smaller community-based placements they will not receive adequate notice as to the continuation of their employment. Can the minister tell me and all concerned members what she is doing about this concern?

Hon Ms Akande: Since we have taken office we have set up a committee and a process whereby we would be developing procedures with the workers, with members of the union and with staff to help move the patients from the larger facilities into the smaller centres. The purpose of the process is so that the workers, the unions and the staff would all be aware of the time lines and would be better able to prepare for the eventuality where they may in fact want to change their place of employment.

Mr Waters: I thank the minister for her answer and appreciate her commitment to the long-term needs of these workers. Can the minister tell me what she is doing in the short term to address the immediate concerns of these workers?

Hon Ms Akande: We have used a consultant from out of province to meet with some of the workers and with many of the people from the unions as well as the staff and to initiate the consultation process. They have not only been involved in designing the process but they are also establishing the time lines by which it may be completed. So they are assured that in fact the decision will not be made arbitrarily.

GLOBAL WARMING

Mr McGuinty: My question is for the Minister of Energy. I want to remind the minister of two specific commitments made by her party relating to the problems of global warming and ozone depletion.

The first commitment is contained in the party paper entitled Greening the Party, Greening the Province. That policy was adopted in June 1990. "Ontario should adopt a 20% carbon emission reduction target (from 1988 levels) for the year 2005, with the ultimate aim of achieving a 50% reduction."

The second commitment is contained in a letter dated 14 August 1990. It was from the then Leader of the Opposition, the member for York South, to Gord Perks of Greenpeace and four other environmental groups. "The NDP supports an immediate ban on CFCs and flexible furniture foam and rigid foam insulation, with a complete ban by 1995 of all ozone destroying CFCs, methylchloroform, halon and carbon tetrachloride."

Does the minister still expect to meet these promised targets and time frames?

Hon Ms Carter: We have not at this point set a definite target for reduction of global warming gases, but Ontario is determined to take a leadership role in reducing emissions of these gases. It is far more effective to take action without expressing a target than it is to have a target and not take action.

On 14 June, that was last Friday, the Minister of Energy met with 150 representatives of labour, industry, environmental and consumer groups on a proposed energy strategy. These stakeholders supported the government's effort to move ahead on energy efficiency. Some of the measures -- tough measures -- we are taking to combat global warming are strong controls on the emission of CFCs, policy direction to Ontario Hydro to spend more on energy efficiency, a $5-billion commitment to improve public transit, our government's commitment to the 3Rs, reducing energy use in government buildings --

The Speaker: Could the minister conclude her remarks please.

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Hon Ms Carter: -- a 75% increase in Ministry of Energy program funding and sustainable forestry. All these efforts show the government's ongoing commitment to move ahead with measures that will benefit Ontario's economy and environment.

Mr McGuinty: I say with respect to the minister that the initiatives she has just outlined hardly represent a thoughtful, methodical and comprehensive approach to the problems of global warming and ozone depletion. The only way we are going to get a handle on those kinds of problems is through that kind of approach and that has yet to be taken by this government.

I want to make reference now to an article that appeared in today's Globe and Mail. That article states three things in particular. First, it says the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of the Environment commissioned a special report entitled Degrees of Change: Steps Towards an Ontario Global Warming Strategy; second, it says that report contains recommendations for reducing greenhouse gases; third, it says the cabinet has shelved the recommendations contained in that report. I would ask the minister, which of these three statements, if any, are not true?

Hon Ms Carter: I do not think it would be appropriate for me to discuss the details of cabinet decisions in the House. However, I would like to repeat what I said in answer to the last question, that the efforts we are making in this province towards energy efficiency are efforts that will have the consequence of reducing global warming. The reality of these efforts puts us in the lead in North America in the attempt to reduce greenhouse gases.

HOCKEY FRANCHISE

Mr Sterling: I would like to ask the Minister of Agriculture and Food about the Ottawa Senators. Hockey teams have supporters from all political persuasions -- they have right wingers who support them and they have left wingers who support them and they have farmers who support them. The local farmers in the areas support the building of the Palladium in the city of Kanata.

I want to ask the Minister of Agriculture and Food about the town of Seaton in North Pickering. There are 7,000 acres of prime agricultural land zoned for residential development, industrial development, commercial development, ready to go, for the roads to be put in, the sewers to be put in, etc. Therefore, there would not be an OMB hearing with regard to the official plan amendment and therefore the minister would not have the opportunity to interject his thoughts at that stage.

Save and except for this one special place in Ontario, there is the matter that the minister owns all 7,000 acres. Is he willing to kill the town of Seaton to show his upholding of the need for preservation of agricultural land here in Ontario?

Hon Mr Buchanan: My job as minister from the time I took over on 1 October is to look forward, not backward, on what has happened in terms of rezoning decisions or economic decisions that were made for planning in the past. This government believes very strongly in the planning process. The minister announced the other day that there is going to be a review of the planning process. We are concerned about the preservation of agriculture land in Ontario. This is one particular OMB hearing that we are participating in in order to preserve and uphold the guidelines. I do not think it is proper to be talking about decisions that were made in the past for Seaton or other economic projects for housing.

Mr Sterling: I have to tell members that the people of eastern Ontario and Ottawa-Carleton find this minister and this government so hypocritical it is unbelievable.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. If the member for Carleton would withdraw the unparliamentary language which he used with respect to a member of the House.

Mr Sterling: If it will make the Speaker more comfortable, I thought the Premier used the same language earlier and therefore I thought it was satisfactory. I will withdraw.

But I will say that the people in eastern Ontario cannot understand the double standard that seems to be leveled at them when dealing with the Ottawa Senators -- 7,000 acres of prime agricultural land in Seaton, 800 acres around the town of Markham, prime agricultural land dealt with differently by this government than 98 acres of questionable agricultural land in eastern Ontario.

Mr Chiarelli: They changed it. Double standard again.

The Speaker: The member for Ottawa West, come to order. The member for Carleton, place his question.

Mr Sterling: Tonight the Friends of the Ottawa Senators are going to be putting on a demonstration in front of the Ontario Municipal Board. They have asked the minister how much he is spending to oppose the Ottawa Senators in Ottawa-Carleton. He has refused to answer that question in the past. They have submitted to him a request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Recently they found out that the minister stalled them for another 30 days for no apparent reason. They have appealed that to the Information and Privacy Commissioner. The minister knows that they are entitled to the information.

The Speaker: Will the member conclude his question, please?

Mr Sterling: Why does the minister not permit them the courtesy of providing them -- the taxpayers of Ontario -- with information as to how he is spending their money? They are entitled to that information. Will the minister put his job on the line so that if they are successful with the freedom of information commissioner, he will resign?

Hon Mr Buchanan: There was a curious mix of items in the question. The preservation of farm land, whether it is in eastern Ontario or southwestern Ontario, anywhere in this province, is a principled argument. To tie that to the amount of money that might be spent in terms of consultant or legal fees is irrelevant.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. Would the minister take his seat. It is quite evident there is no interest in hearing the response. New question.

COMMUNITY RADIO

Mr Wood: My question is for the honourable Minister of Culture and Communications. My riding of Cochrane North is the second-largest riding in the province. It covers many thousand square kilometres. Obtaining news and information and keeping in touch with one another is almost impossible without community radio. I am encouraged by this government's commitment to community-based radio. The minister's announcement a couple of weeks ago of $1.7 million indicates the ministry is serious about community radio.

How will the money be disbursed throughout the north, and will any of that money be coming to Cochrane North?

Hon Mr Marchese: All community radio stations that are licensed by the CRTC will be eligible to apply for those funds, and that includes the francophone and native aboriginal communities. The funds will be available to each station at the end of next April. They will receive a maximum of $25,000. We believe many will benefit in the north. In the riding of Cochrane North there may be as many as seven stations that can benefit and can apply.

My ministry staff is working at developing funding criteria for all native and francophone community radio stations in northern and southern Ontario. All native and francophone communities owning a community radio station will be consulted on the development of those criteria.

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RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr H. O'Neil: My question is to the Minister of Tourism and Recreation and it concerns the Sunday shopping tourist criteria and whether these criteria are fair and responsive.

It is clear to us that the criteria are subjective and very open to abuse, and I think the minister will agree that not everyone shares the same opinion on whether a retail establishment is culturally appealing or a building's architectural features are distinct. However, yesterday when I asked the Solicitor General whether or not the Eaton Centre, Toronto's premier tourist attraction, will be eligible for a tourist exemption under the guidelines, he either refused to or could not answer this question. It would seem that no one understands how the NDP's tourist criteria are going to work.

What is the minister going to do to make sure that people understand the tourist criteria, that they enforce them in a fair and uniform manner and that no one applies them in a manner inconsistent with his stated objectives?

Hon Mr North: I appreciate the question from the member across the floor. We have had some consultations within our own ministry and worked with the consultants to give them a good idea and a good explanation of how this will work. The consultants will go into the field and will work with municipalities on request to explain the criteria very clearly to them and give them all the pertinent information they require.

Mr H. O'Neil: Again, I do not think the minister has answered the question for ourselves or for the municipalities.

On 4 June, when asked what the government would do if the municipalities interpreted the tourist criteria in a manner inconsistent with the government's stated objectives, the Solicitor General said it was a municipal issue and people could take the municipality to court if they felt the municipality did not interpret the criteria in a consistent manner. He also refused to accept any provincial authority for enforcing the criteria.

If the minister is unwilling to intervene to ensure that his guidelines are interpreted in a manner consistent with the provincial policy, how does he expect to develop the fair and responsive system he promised?

Hon Mr North: We have laboured at some length to develop criteria which we felt were adequate and were fair to workers and municipalities and to consumers as well. We feel we have criteria which are relevant to the tourism industry, which the tourism industry feels are relevant to itself, and are very good. We feel they will do the job that we asked them to do as we put them in place, and we are looking forward to having a common pause day in the province of Ontario.

NATIVE HUNTING AND FISHING

Mr J. Wilson: My question is to the Minister of Natural Resources. On 28 May the minister said in this Legislature, "We have an agreement with the Algonquins of Golden Lake on principles for hunting deer and moose within the context of this policy." It was announced last night at a public meeting in Barry's Bay that the Golden Lake band has withdrawn from negotiations regarding the subagreements for hunting and fishing rights in Algonquin Park.

Given that we are heading into peak season for tourists in Algonquin Park, has he been successful in limiting hunting by the Golden Lake people in all circumstances in Algonquin Park to the late fall and mid-January period of the year, and if so, in what area of the park?

Hon Mr Wildman: This a very timely question. I must say I am a little surprised, though, if the statement is accurate about what was said at the meeting last night, because surely the member is aware that we opened negotiations formally at Golden Lake on Saturday. To suggest the Algonquins have withdrawn from negotiations ignores that fact.

Our negotiators met with the chief and council and the negotiators for the Golden Lake band, along with representatives of the federal government, at Golden Lake on Saturday. At that time they identified a number of the issues and areas of concern and started to develop a timetable and framework for the negotiations.

One of the most important and pressing issues that will be dealt with in those negotiations is the finalization of the interim measures agreements with regard to the deer, moose and fishing regulations which will be in place as the negotiations on the land claim proceed.

Mr J. Wilson: On 28 March in this House the minister was quoted as saying that hunting during this period, late fall to mid-January, will be excluded from areas frequented by tourists. On 28 May he also said that the subagreements will protect public safety. From this, I can only conclude that hunting by the Algonquins of Golden Lake will be banned in all areas of the park which are open to travel and use by the public, be it by public road and/or maintained trail or canoe routes.

Will the minister confirm that this will indeed be the case and provide some assurance to tourists that Algonquin is still a safe and enjoyable place to visit?

Hon Mr Wildman: Algonquin Park is, as we all know, the jewel of the park system and is one that all tourists should be happy to visit and enjoy this summer. The negotiations with regard to the interim subagreements on moose and deer hunting and fishing are ongoing and we hope to have them finalized soon. There is no hunting, as the member knows, going on in Algonquin Park at this time. The first nation in the negotiations is developing community rules which will be negotiated and finalized and which will limit the numbers of deer that will be taken, the areas where they will be taken, the number of moose that will be taken, the time of the year when they will be taken and the areas. Those will be outside the regular and most frequented tourist areas.

The fishing agreement is more difficult and complex and is ongoing but we anticipate that in good faith we will be able to negotiate agreements which will be acceptable to both sides and will preserve conservation and park values and ensure that all tourists and all Ontarians can enjoy Algonquin Park.

PETITIONS

AMALGAMATION OF TOWNSHIPS

Mr Drainville: It gives me great pleasure today to present a petition from residents of Verulam township in the riding of Victoria-Haliburton. In fact, they are with us today: Janet Sheridan, Malcolm Junkin and Bob Junkin, in the gallery over here beside the government side. There are 1,543 signatures, which represent about 60% or more of the eligible voters in Verulam township.

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the council of the county of Victoria has voted to accept a recommendation from the steering committee on county government to amalgamate the village of Bobcaygeon with the township of Verulam; and

"Whereas the residents of Verulam were not given the opportunity for public review and comment on the recommendations being made before they were voted upon by county council,

"We, the undersigned residents of Verulam township, petition the Legislative Assembly as follows:

"The recommendation for amalgamation between the village of Bobcaygeon and the township of Verulam not be accepted until such time as the residents of both jurisdictions have had the opportunity to provide formal comment on and acceptance of the proposal in a municipal referendum."

I have signed this.

OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

Mr J. Wilson: I am pleased to rise and present a petition to the Legislature of Ontario on behalf of constituents in my riding of Simcoe West. The petition reads as follows:

"Whereas the Queen of Canada has long been a symbol of national unity for Canadians from all walks of life and from all ethnic backgrounds; and

"Whereas the people of Canada are currently facing a constitutional crisis which could potentially result in the breakup of the federation and are in need of unifying symbols,

"We, the undersigned, respectfully petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to restore the oath to the Queen for Ontario's police officers."

That is signed by some 20 constituents in the riding of Simcoe West and I too am pleased to affix my name to this petition.

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Mr Cooper: I would like to present a petition on behalf of the Royal Canadian Legion, East Toronto Branch 11. It is signed by 153 members or friends. It states:

"We, the undersigned, affiliated with the Royal Canadian Legion, East Toronto Branch 11, either through membership or friendship, wish to add our voices to the protest regarding the removal of the oath of allegiance to the Queen for the Metro Toronto Police department or civilian commissioners. This action only further erodes the heritage of Canada in a time when unity is an issue, not only for those born and raised in this country but for those who chose Canada as their homeland."

Mr J. Wilson: I am pleased to rise and present a petition to the Legislature of Ontario on behalf of constituents in my riding of Simcoe West. The petition reads as follows:

"Whereas the Queen of Canada has long been a symbol of national unity for Canadians from all walks of life and from all ethnic backgrounds; and

"Whereas the people of Canada are currently facing a constitutional crisis which could potentially result in the breakup of the federation, and are in need of unifying symbols;

"We, the undersigned, respectfully petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to restore the oath to the Queen for Ontario's police officers."

That is signed by a number of members of the Tosorontio township council, and I too have affixed my name to this petition.

INTRODUCTION OF BILL

TOWNSHIP OF CHANDOS ACT, 1991

Mr Drainville moved first reading of Bill Pr77, An Act respecting The Corporation of the Township of Chandos.

Motion agreed to.

The Speaker: Orders of the day, the member for Bruce.

Mr Elston: Before I move the motion, I think it has been agreed among all the parties that the clock be allowed to run for equal portions of time for the debate in each of the parties. I am not sure whether I was supposed to announce that earlier or not.

Interjection.

Mr Elston: Actually, I think the debate is to run until 5:50 and we hope a vote will be taken at about 5:55.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

WANT OF CONFIDENCE MOTION: STANDARDS OF MINISTERIAL CONDUCT

Mr Elston moved that, since the New Democratic Party government has demonstrated a total disregard for the standards of conduct traditionally adhered to by cabinet ministers, as exemplified by the failure of the Solicitor General to comply with the conflict-of-interest guidelines and code of conduct as laid down by the Premier, and since the Solicitor General has failed to comply with the long-standing parliamentary tradition which promotes the independence of the judiciary, thereby jeopardizing the separation of powers traditionally associated with Ontario parliamentary history, therefore, pursuant to the provisions of standing order 42(a), the House no longer has confidence in the government.

Mr Elston: For those of us in the Liberal Party, I think no time has been more difficult than this one because of the fact that we were under such a tremendous rush of attacks by the New Democratic Party when we were the governing party in this province. In those days, while we were trying to conduct the affairs of the government of Ontario, we were subject to vicious attacks and assaults led by the member for York South, the leader of the New Democratic Party, the member who now assumes the role of Premier and who, because of his own guidelines, has assumed the mantle of chief judge and executioner with respect to the standards of conduct of his cabinet ministers, his parliamentary assistants and indeed of his caucus.

While we note he has assumed that mantle early through speeches made to the public after his election on 6 September, the assumption of power on 1 October and through the issuance of several pieces of written material since that time, we note he has been unable and unwilling to carry out the execution of his office and the activity of providing the judgement required to enforce the Members' Conflict of Interest Act, the code of conduct and the guidelines he himself has established for the operation of politicians in his party, in his parliamentary assistants corps and in his cabinet.

This is a particularly difficult time for all of us in Ontario. At a time when there must be a sense of stability, a sense of reliance on the good, old-fashioned values of honesty and integrity, the prime minister of this province has not provided a distinct direction towards integrity by enforcing his guidelines. He makes great speeches. He makes great assaults on the opposition parties when they ask for resignations of ministers who have indicated they have transgressed the guidelines and the code of conduct required of them as members of the executive council. He does not make a stand on behalf of the people who require integrity and honesty in government.

The most notorious of the group is the minister who has been named in my want of confidence motion, the Solicitor General. His situation is well known to the people of Ontario because it has been analysed and analysed, not only in the daily press and in the electronic media, but day by day here in the House as we ask the questions necessary to unfold the sordid details behind the writing of letters to justices of the peace with respect to parking tickets.

While the Solicitor General would try to pooh-pooh this as merely a matter dealing with a $35 parking ticket, it is the most serious of problems associated with his office. It is an interference with the justice system the likes of which we have never seen in this province to this date, and he begs that he did not write, see or authorize the letter. He washes his hands in public while this travesty occurs. Not only does he breach the conflict-of-interest guidelines and spurn the advice from the people in the Office of the Premier, but he also breaks the great and deep tradition of parliamentary and judiciary separation upon which our principles of government and social order have been built in this province. That alone is enough to disqualify this person from sitting in the executive council. He took an oath to be true to those traditions and support the law of this nation and this province and he has forgotten all. His declaration of ignorance is not enough to save him.

The Premier, in accepting ignorance as an excuse, means to say that it is not enough to save his government as far as we are concerned. The Premier cannot and must not accept ignorance as an excuse in this situation. There are so many places where he can stand up for honesty when we need to bolster the institutions of this province. Cynicism is everywhere. In a province where we stand long by tradition, the institution of parliamentary democracy is under assault. The office of political leader, of politician, is being questioned at all turns by several people in the public. The media write editorials, the people write letters and question us and day by day the leader of the province adds fuel to the fire that feeds the cynicism that attacks the very basis upon which our social and cultural history has been constructed. That cannot continue to happen.

If we are to have no integrity at the head of government, then we cannot have government that can survive long. If we have no integrity at the head of this government, then we cannot convince people to come to Ontario and put into practice their full support of the economic system we have here, of the laws that are passed in this House or of the laws that are passed in the Parliament of Canada.

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How can we have a Premier running around saying that he wants to instil pride in the business people of this province and get them to stay in Ontario when the types of things he does, and allows his Solicitor General to do, tend to destroy the very patriotic support he would want to kindle in the hearts of the people who now live in Ontario? People are ashamed of the way this sordid event has unfolded: the contrived sort of intervention by way of the Attorney General inviting the RCMP to come and investigate, then indicating that the investigation report, when it yielded no criminal charges -- just as this opposition party said there would be none -- now being kept secret will be hidden for ever from the public, and a full disclosure of all the sordid details has been prevented in a way that allows all of us in this democracy to pass our own judgements.

While they refused to issue a copy of the report to the public, and even to us in the Legislative Assembly, they also refused to take this matter before a parliamentary standing committee to analyse what has taken place. We cannot interview the Solicitor General in that committee. We can only accept his stonewalling-type answers here in this House. We cannot interview the three people in this constituency office who obviously were not on the same wavelength when they answered the investigation questions by the RCMP. We cannot ask questions of the people in the Premier's office about their involvement. We cannot ask the Attorney General about the involvement of his people in his department and in fact about his own involvement in this whole sordid issue.

All of those closures of avenues of information, the shutting down of the openness of communication and the tramping upon the integrity of the system here in this House that this government has put on our shoulders, leave the opposition with only one tool, and that is to move this motion of want of confidence in the government's ability to manage the affairs of this province.

This is of the most serious nature, but it is not the only means by which we sought to have an open discussion of this event. Each time we asked it was prevented. Each time we inquired whether the Premier would allow us to do certain things he said no. Each time we asked it was not granted. So we have but the use of standing order 42(a) to move a motion of want of confidence in an administration that has quickly grown arrogant, that has quite early grown corrupt and that in my view is not able to command the respect either of the members of this House or of the people of Ontario.

Mr Speaker, it looks as if I cannot use the word "corrupt." I apologize. I withdraw that word. They are not able to command the support of the people of the province because they do not display integrity and honesty. They do not display the types of qualities the people expect in a governing party, and they will not command the respect of the opposition party until they move to clean up the events that surrounded the affairs as begun by the Solicitor General. That is quite clear, and that is why there is a want of confidence in this House for this government.

Mr Carr: I am pleased to participate in this debate and to add a few comments. I am going to start off by reading what the Premier said when he brought in the conflict-of-interest guidelines back in December, I guess. He was going to be different from all the other governments and have a situation where he was going to be so pure that there would be no scandals. It is kind of ironic that as we sit here only a few short months later, we have had more scandals and resignations in this government than we have had bills passed in this House. That is a sad commentary on this government.

When the guidelines were brought out, the Premier said: "We must at all times act in a manner that will not only bear the closest public scrutiny, but will go further and ensure public confidence and trust in the integrity of government." I think, like everybody else, we were all in a non-partisan manner hoping this would happen, because we all get tarred as politicians when something happens that affects us, because everybody puts us in a lump and says all politicians are alike.

The rules and guidelines were laid out and championed by this Premier who was going to be different, who was going to bring back integrity to government. It is ironic that in just a short period even the most objective observer would say there have been more problems with conflict of interest in the time this government has been in power than any other government in the history of this province and in fact, I would submit, probably in the history of this country.

Here is a man who said on 12 December: "We must at all times act in a manner that will not only bear the closest public scrutiny, but will go further and ensure public confidence and trust." Here we are with a motion saying there is no trust in this government, that the House no longer has confidence in the government. For days on end we have heard the wrangling that has gone on.

I had the pleasure of participating with the standing committee on administration of justice and going through some of these conflict guidelines. When the Premier came in way back in February and laid it out, I was one of those who believed that he was going to try to be different, that he really meant what he said. But a funny thing happened on the way. He said what he said in February when there were no problems, no hint of scandals; then when it happened to him, all of a sudden things changed very quickly. We had a man in February who said he was trying to uphold the public confidence and trust, and as we sit here today people are saying this Premier is no different than any other Premier. He has not lived up to the high standards he tried to set when he was in opposition.

I have had a little bit of pleasure speaking to some of the people about what it was like. I did not sit in this Legislature when the Premier was in opposition, but I have heard the stories of what he was like over some of the other people, how careers were destroyed over people like Joan Smith and the member for Oriole and some of the others. They were absolutely destroyed by a man who now is saying: "It doesn't matter as long as you didn't do it for any personal gain. As long as you didn't do it for any personal gain it's okay." It is ironic that this was the same individual who at the time he came before this committee said he was going to try to be different.

I read some of the headlines that unfortunately back up what I say. It is not just the two opposition parties saying this. In fact, a good part of the province is saying the same things. I read a headline in one of our daily papers that said: "Passing the Buck." The article said: "Provincially the only people who do not seem to realize that Solicitor General Mike Farnan has no credibility left in the great parking ticket affair are the Premier and his trained socialist seals." That is what the people of this province are saying about a man who I think everybody in the beginning thought was going to try to uphold the high standards of this fine office as Premier.

The next headline reads, "Bumbling Bob." The article says: "We would remind Rae -- since obviously somebody has to, that he is no longer the opposition leader, shooting his mouth off in all directions, but the Premier. Act like it, not like some frustrated graduate student with a different answer for every new political quiz."

In fact, that is what has happened over the last little while. Initially, when some of the problems broke, he got rid of one minister for posing in the Toronto Sun. As we went along he realized the high standards he set could not possibly be upheld but, instead of coming out to the people of this province and saying, "I made a mistake, I want to admit there was a mistake; the standards that I thought I could uphold in opposition, I realize I can't as Premier," he did not do that. He did not admit his mistakes. He has tried to hide things. All we wanted during this period was for the justice committee to have some time to review the situation.

Even as recently as yesterday I believed the Premier when he said: "The justice committee: I want to get input of what needs to be done. We've got to make this non-political so we can all improve the integrity." Then he turns around the very day he says that and his members of the committee rush through and try to invoke closure in the committee.

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So it is indeed a bit frustrating for a new member who came in to this Legislature and was interested in taking people for what was said and trying to contribute, and here we are in only a few short months where a government that came in with such high expectations has slipped lower than any other government in the history of this province and indeed the history of this country.

I look at some of the things that were said during that time when we met on the standing committee on administration of justice. It was interesting when we questioned the Premier -- I guess there were some of the problems with the member for Victoria-Haliburton and his problems with the ministry -- he said at that time -- and I guess we should not have been too surprised he would later come to this conclusion -- it was okay to break the law because he did it with conscience and there was no personal gain.

As I said to the Premier then, I guess it is okay to go out and rob a bank in Ontario as long as you give the money to the poor, because that is indeed what he is saying. In fact, he has repeated that back during these last few days, saying, "It does not matter; you can do some things we might have thought wrong in the past because they were not done for personal gain."

Some of the people he tried to go after so strongly when he was in opposition, like the former Solicitor General who went to help a constituent at the police station when she believed there was some wrongdoing, did not do it for any personal gain. There was no personal gain there. But of course he, in his ideals of opposition leader, called for a resignation. Here is the same one who turns around and talks about compassion. He had very little compassion in the past when it came to people like Joan Smith and the member for Oriole and some of the other ones.

Here we have a Premier who says one thing before the election, another thing after the election; one thing when he is trying to get political points in bringing in some tough legislation and another thing when some of the scandals begin to hit.

For some of those who have not had a chance to read the conflict-of-interest guidelines that were submitted -- and I suspect as we go along that is probably the bulk of the cabinet -- when you look at it, it is very clear on page 4, "Ministers (except the Attorney General in the exercise of official duties) shall not communicate with members of the judiciary concerning any matter pending before the court."

It is very clear, very simple. Anyone can understand that. Yet what we have had recently is a Premier who says, "It is okay during this period of time because the Solicitor General did not know the letters were written."

At a time when people are a little bit cynical and sceptical about politicians, we said, "Let's not take your word for it, let's not take the Solicitor General's word for it, let's not take the opposition; let's have some of the people who were involved come before the justice committee." He would not do that. He did not want to have it come out in the open. Instead, he tried to hide behind the RCMP report on criminal activities and wrongdoings when everybody realized that was not what was at issue. What was at issue is a Premier who, when he believes it is in the political interest to do so, will stand up and champion guidelines and then not live up to them. Then we wonder why the public is a little bit cynical and sceptical about politicians, because indeed we are all tarred by this action.

During that time we had some very good submissions that came before us. I guess some of the best material was from Judge Evans, who of course is the Conflict of Interest Commissioner. Some of the points the judge, who is well respected, made -- and I will read it out. For those members who did not participate in that committee there is a summary of the standing committee on administration of justice done by the fine research officer, dated 6 May. It talks about some of the things that are important, laid out in very precise detail.

What Judge Evans said at that time was: "Neither the ministers nor their parliamentary assistants should make representation on behalf of constituents before government agencies, including the Workers' Compensation Board and the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. There must be a level of non-interference by ministers and parliamentary assistants. Instead, the constituency office workers should be making those representations, but without waving a flag about the minister's or the parliamentary assistant's position."

The quote I think is important is "without waving a flag." In the case of the Solicitor General, the name was being signed by another individual saying "Mike Farnan, MPP." That certainly waved a flag and is what Judge Evans was talking about. He went on to say that ministers and parliamentary assistants and their constituency offices should not engage in activities on behalf of constituents which might involve an agency that falls within the minister's or the parliamentary assistant's portfolio.

My good friend the member for Durham East, during some of those presentations, talked about an incident in his riding where some constituents wanted to get him involved, and he said: "I can't do it. I've got to step aside. I'm a parliamentary assistant to the Solicitor General. I can't become involved." The constituents got a little bit upset with him at the time, because they felt he should have become involved. But here is a new member, elected a few short months, who knew he should not be involved. Very clearly he stepped back from it and did not become involved.

We are led to believe that the Solicitor General of the day let his office know about the fact that they were not to become involved in any proceedings, but these rules were not made very clear. The RCMP report said staff member number 2 in the constituency office did not have any written guidelines or directions in relation to correspondence.

What troubles me more than anything else is, had this government admitted to it and said, "Yes, we realize we did not give clear direction to the people in that constituency office," I think most people would be fair. But they did not, they tried to hide behind it saying, "Yes, we did tell them." Very clearly this RCMP report says something different.

The way to get it out in the open and to clear it and, I submit, make it so that the matter will not only bear the closest public scrutiny but go farther and ensure public confidence and trust, like the Premier wanted, would have been to send this whole matter before the standing committee on administration of justice. He chose not to do it, because then we would have been able to have the situation aired and everybody would have been able to hear exactly what went on.

We had days upon days where information by the Attorney General -- days when he knew about it, his deputy knew about it, his deputy knew about the situation, and this House was not made aware of it, and then we wonder why the public is a little bit cynical and sceptical with politicians.

This motion that was brought forward today speaks volumes to the lack of confidence in this government. I have actually heard some things I never thought would be heard so quickly in a government's mandate. I had some people who are calling me in my constituency office the other day saying: "Is there anything we can do? Is there any way the Lieutenant Governor can get the Premier to resign? Is there any way an election could be called?" They are so upset and angry with what has happened in this province over the last little while. That is a sad commentary on a government after just a few short months. I think people on all sides are hoping we are going to be able to change things a little bit and bring back some integrity.

Here is a man who came out, championed the cause and in fact slipped further than any other Premier in the history of this province with regard to integrity. That is what the public looks at more than anything else. If he did not come out and champion it during the throne speech, and if he did not make the headlines with his guidelines when he introduced them -- but here was a man who was going to be different and in fact he is no different. Nothing has changed. We have no change in the government and over the last little while, I submit, things have actually gotten worse.

As we look here at this motion, I suspect it was not brought lightly by the member, it was brought because of the fact that this New Democratic government has demonstrated a total disregard for the standards and conduct traditionally adhered to by cabinet ministers. Not only did they go farther to try to get rid of some of the public perception out there they have slipped backwards, and instead of improving we are now faced with a situation where indeed we have more public cynicism out there towards this government and the political process.

We heard about how he was going to bring in tough guidelines for divestment under his conflict-of-interest guidelines, and yet the people he brought in, the Treasurer at the time, the Chairman of Management Board and the minister responsible for native affairs, the ones who came in when he was championing these tough guidelines and, "We're going to divest," every one of them came in and said, "But we don't have anything to divest." In fact, the Treasurer and the minister responsible for native affairs were both rather comical in what they put forward that day making fun of the situation. Here we had a Premier saying, "We're going to be different, we're going to be tougher, we're going to divest," and then he sends in ministers who have nothing to divest.

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Then we wonder why the public is a little bit cynical and a little bit sceptical. Even if they brought in tough guidelines and sent somebody in to talk about it and say, "I agree with it. You should be able to divest and I've got to give up this little convenience store that I run," or whatever it would be, there would be some credibility.

What we have got is a political process now where you attempt to get headlines, you attempt to talk about things that you think are popular, but I tell members, actions speak much louder, particularly with politicians in this day and age, and particularly when we had a situation where we had a Premier who during the last campaign made a great deal of fanfare about the fact that he was going to be different. He talked I guess at the beginning of the last campaign and personally went after the Premier of the day at that time. Some of the members may remember during the election campaign he started off, not in this House, because he would have had to withdraw it, but he called the then Premier a liar for the reason that he called the election, and then proceeded to go around the province and go after him on all the problems the previous government had. Then, as we sit here today, he has had more scandals in a short period of time than any other Premier in the history of this province. That is why people are saying there is cynicism and they are a little bit sceptical about politicians and the political process.

The confidence that is lacking out there by this public in this government has to do with a lot of things. It has to do with the broken promises. It has to do with the scandals. It has to do with saying one thing before an election and doing something after the election. It has to do with maintaining standards they said were going to be higher than anybody else's and in fact slipping farther and farther behind than any other government. That is why there is a lack of confidence in the integrity of this government in the province of Ontario today.

I think all members, as we reflect on this, are going to have to work extremely hard to get back the confidence out there in the public, the lack of confidence, because our job during this period of time is extremely critical. Never in the history of our nation have so many been so cynical and sceptical about the political process and about politicians at all levels: municipal, provincial and federal politicians. In fact, what we have seen over the last little while has added to that.

I am one of the individuals who would hope that over the next period of time the conflict-of-interest guidelines will become something the people of this province can be proud of. But what we need to do is not have a situation like we had yesterday during that justice committee, where we say one thing in the morning and in the afternoon in question period and then we do something completely different a few hours later.

It is with deep regret that I think everybody believes that this motion had to be brought forward at this particular time, but hopefully, as a result of this, the members opposite will see that opposition from our friends in the Liberal Party and from this party is such that we really feel at this particular time the confidence in the government has been lost. As we go forward, I would hope that all members of the House would be able to contribute and to try to bring back some of the confidence that has been lost over the last little while.

Mr Sutherland: In some ways it is a pleasure to be speaking on this motion; in other ways it is not.

I just want to say that I think the Solicitor General has done a very good job of explaining his position. He has been very open and very consistent. I also want to say that I think the Premier has been very frank and candid with the people of Ontario in the decisions he has made on various issues. I disagree with the sense that there have been scandals. There have been some errors in judgement, and I think there is a big difference between errors in judgement and scandals.

I want to talk this afternoon about what this government has been doing, because the members opposite have talked about how people are cynical of politicians. They are cynical of politicians who do not want to deal with the real issues of the time.

In the letters and phone calls I get in to my office, people are not talking about the Solicitor General. They are not talking about other cabinet ministers. They are talking about the economy. They are talking about the fact that they have lost their jobs or they feel they are going to lose their jobs due to free trade or due to other reasons.

I believe the people of this province do have trust and faith in this government, because this government -- not the federal government, not any other provincial government -- is willing to deal with the real issue right now, and that is the recession in this province caused by the federal government and caused by other issues. Our government was the one that was willing to say, "Hey, when times are tough, when we are in the worst recession since the 1930s, we are not going to turn our backs on the people of this province, the people who put their faith and trust in us to look after them." When it is their time of greatest need, we are trying to be there for them. We are trying to be there for them in different ways -- the $700-million anti-recession spending to get those people back to work in those areas most affected; the construction industry, which has been very hard hit by the recession -- at the same time helping to deal with improving our infrastructure in the province. That is instilling confidence in the people of Ontario.

I also want to talk about some of the other things that I believe this government has been doing to instil confidence in Ontario. I think the fact that we are continuing on our commitment through the wage protection fund, a very needy and worthwhile --

The Acting Speaker (Mr Villeneuve): I believe the honourable member knows what Mr Elston's motion is. You are allowed to deviate to some degree. However, we have to come back to the subject matter at hand.

Mr Sutherland: I would like to suggest that this is a motion of non-confidence with regard to the government. I am trying to explain why the people of this province should be able to retain confidence in this government, and I am doing that.

The Acting Speaker: Within the context of the motion, please.

Mr Sutherland: The context of the motion is a non-confidence motion.

As I was saying, the wage protection fund is something that is long overdue for those people in this province who have been thrown out of work and have not been given the wages duly owed to them.

I think in terms of some of the other legislation we have seen come forward, such as Bill 17, changes to the support and custody legislation to ensure that those single spouses who are looking after the children get the support payments that are rightly theirs and duly owed to them, that is important and we know that many of those people are on some type of social assistance or on some type of other help and assistance. I think it is important that type of legislation is going through.

I think that is what instils confidence in the people of Ontario in this government, the fact that we are willing to deal with the real issues in this province right now, to deal with the hard-hitting economic issues.

There is no doubt we are in a difficult economic time, as I already stated, the worst recession since the 1930s. With free trade, high interest rates and the general restructuring going on in the economy, there are grave challenges ahead, and I think all members of this Legislature, no matter what side, need to focus on that in terms of how Ontario is going to be able to deal with these issues in the future in terms of competition. That is going to take everyone's support in terms of dealing with issues of skills development, in dealing with issues of research and development, because Ontario is competitive, but it needs to become more competitive, and we all agree with that.

I want to say also that in terms of dealing with the issues of cynicism out there and people's confidence, some of the fearmongering that I seem to be repeatedly hearing from certain members of the opposition, how this government is driving jobs away and driving people out of the province, concerns me. I think they are creating a very negative attitude out there, in the sense that I am afraid some people are going to start believing some of the things they are saying rather than the real story.

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I think, through what this government has done within the first nine months of its mandate, the people of Ontario should have a great deal of confidence in the government. We have been listening to their concerns. We continue to consult. I think it was interesting, on the issue of consultation, that when I was in the standing committee on finance and economic affairs the representative from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business was there and I believe used the words "We're being consulted to death" over issues. People are being consulted, and we are listening to them and in many areas we are attempting to respond to those concerns, as the Minister of Labour indicated earlier today on the changes that were brought forward on Bill 70.

I want to just reiterate that the people out there, the electorate, get cynical when politicians do not want to deal with the issues that are affecting them right now. The most serious issue is the state of our economy, the fact that we have unemployment levels that we have not seen for several years, that we seem to be losing a great deal of our manufacturing jobs, our manufacturing base. We have to try to deal with that in terms of the jobs we are losing in the low-skilled areas and get us into some of the higher-skilled areas and the high value added areas. I think that is going to be a very difficult challenge for any government, but we all must work towards that area. I know this government has a commitment to doing that.

Let me just sum up by saying again that cynicism and lack of faith and trust are not caused by a government that is willing to be courageous in these difficult economic times and that is willing to take a risk and that is willing to listen to the people, all of the people of the province, rather than go on for weeks on end about an issue that people do not seem to be that concerned about, based on the information I am getting in to my office. I have full confidence in this government and I am very proud of the many things this government has been doing and of the great candour and frankness the Premier has been using in addressing the issues.

Mr Scott: There was a good deal of jocularity in the House yesterday when the reference was made to a column that Dalton Camp had written in the newspaper in which he compared the NDP government to the Clampetts. The idea that our Premier, Oxford-educated, silk-stocking socialist that he is, belonging to all the best clubs, could be compared to Jed Clampett strikes one as odd.

What was overlooked in that article was another comment made by Mr Camp. Members have to remember that Mr Camp has been fired by two Conservative administrations, the administration of Brian Mulroney and that of Mr Diefenbaker, so he has some credibility, even in the Liberal circles. But what he said, reviewing a series of facts, not about the ministers so much as about the Premier of the province, to whom I am speaking, is that, for all his talents, he had no talent for public administration. That is a serious charge, and it is a charge which can be vindicated perhaps in a number of ways.

I just want today to talk about the record the Premier has made for himself on the subject of conflict of interest, because I believe what is going to be called the Farnan affair is going to be perceived historically as a kind of watershed for this government. I have been through watersheds and I recognize them better than some when they occur, having tried to swim up against them. This is a watershed that will long be remembered and will have consequences.

The difficulty, of course, is that the Premier has made his reputation in a public way out of conflicts of interest. I think of three examples, which I will give you in turn: the example of Chaviva Hosek, against whom an allegation was made that she had hired a developer in her department; the member for Oriole, against whom an allegation was made -- all this by the Premier, by the way -- that her husband had improperly obtained a contract; and Joan Smith, to whom I referred yesterday.

In the Chaviva Hosek case and in the case of the member for Oriole, the Premier insisted, to the point of stopping the work of the Legislature, that those ministers resign on the basis of an allegation -- not on the basis of a fact but on the basis of an allegation -- and that ministerial responsibility and credibility in government required that to be done. The fact that Chaviva Hosek was later cleared of all wrongdoing by the public auditor of the province of Ontario, and the fact that a parliamentary committee, which had an opposition majority in those days between 1985 and 1987, subsequently cleared the member for Oriole, did not bother the Premier one bit.

When Joan Smith, a mother and grandmother, was asleep in her cottage at Grand Bend two summers ago and got a call in the middle of the night -- I think it was almost 4 am -- from a girl who lived down the street who was alone because her parents were away and who said her brother had been arrested by the police and was being assaulted in the police station down the road, Joan did not say grandly, "I'm a minister of the crown and I don't intervene in those matters." She got up in the middle of the night. She got dressed. She went down there. She said, "I don't want to have anything to do with this except to see the boy, that he is all right." She was shown the boy and she left.

And what did the Premier say in so many words. He said: "I want her head. I want her resignation right now." And do you know what he did? He rang the bells in here for 18 days until he got it.

Those are three women.

Now, I want to begin by saying that I have no criticism of the position taken by the House leader in her statement the other day, no criticism of the position taken by the Minister without Portfolio responsible for women's issues. I think, if you want my opinion, they both behaved with the greatest propriety in what they did here in the House last Thursday: made the requisite decisions, spoke up frankly and firmly in the strongest parliamentary tradition we have. I was proud to be associated with them. I would say something else about the Solicitor General, whose behaviour I think has been frankly cowardly. But those two women behaved with perfect propriety and I am honoured, if they will permit it, to be a member of the same House with them.

My concerns are not about the ministers. My concern is about the Premier. As I said, he made his public reputation over conflict of interest, and he took those three women, Chaviva, the member for Oriole and Joan, and made them scapegoats, though two were demonstrated to be innocent and the other did nothing more significant than either the House leader or the minister for women's issues.

Here is what he said, speaking of one minister, on 6 May 1983, "The Treasurer should do the honourable thing; he should resign.... There are countless instances in our tradition where ministers have accepted personal responsibility. Even though it is a rough test," the Premier said, "it is a test that all of us must inevitably live by."

Here is what he said on 2 July, 1986. "If the government is not willing to enforce the guidelines, it does not matter what they are, how comprehensive they are or how great they are. They could have been devised by Moses and brought down from the mountaintop, but if we do not have a Premier who is prepared to enforce the guidelines, they will not make any difference." He said that, not only here but all across the province when he had the chance to attack the conduct of others.

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Then he said on 4 December 1986, "Does the Premier not understand the problems he has created by not stating quite simply that it would be better in everybody's interests if the minister stepped aside from the cabinet until such time as" the matter in question was resolved.

Here is what the Premier said about Joan Smith. "I don't want any investigations," the Premier said. Can you not hear him saying it, that little fellow standing up over here. "I don't want any investigations when I am so close to office; I want her out. The critical question is the judgement of the Premier. If that isn't improper, I must be living in a different province."

That is the campaign that this Premier created around himself in opposition and that he brought to government 6 September 1990. I think the case can be made that his failure to maintain his standards may, in fact, be that from the beginning his standards were too high.

I am not satisfied that the mere fact an allegation -- an unsubstantiated allegation like Chaviva Hosek and Elinor Caplan -- is made against a minister should require the minister to resign, but I think what happened is the Premier had set for himself a standard so high, which I believe he intended to apply, that when he came to the premiership, to the job where he showed, as Dalton Camp says, no talent for public administration and found that his standard could not be applied, he was without a standard. He waffled and moved from decision to decision until today the Chief Justice of Ontario is summoned to the NDP caucus: "Tell us about this thing. Can we not get it all right? We seem to be screwing up in a major way."

What we are talking about here, in the three cases that have been identified, is not a question simply of the Premier's guideline. The rule that a minister of the crown shall not interfere directly or indirectly with a judicial tribunal is not simply a guideline. That is a rule that is as old as parliament and as old as responsible government. It is important to understand, because people laugh at the rule. Judy Rebick laughs at the rule. Michele Landsberg laughs at the rule. They do not understand what that rule is for.

It finds a slight extension in the rules of our own House in written form. We have a rule the Attorney General relies on -- more often than I would have considered appropriate -- that we should not comment on a pending case. Why do we have that rule? We have that rule as a caution to members of the House that they will not seek by a comment here to influence the conduct of independent judges. Of course, that is the rule we are talking about here. It is a parliamentary rule as old as responsible government and as old as an independent judiciary. The fact that it is incorporated in a guideline is beside the point. It exists without the guideline.

The problem, unhappily, is that the Premier of this province, when all is said and done, does not really understand that rule. The rule is not designed to impose a restriction on a minister. It is designed to protect judges, who have independent responsibilities, from pressure, whether the pressure is well intentioned or badly intentioned, whether the pressure is successful in achieving its objective or unsuccessful. It is a rule designed not for the advantage or benefit of ministers, but for the advantage and benefit of judges.

I say to the members of the House, and I think most of them accept, that we cannot maintain our system, which depends on executive and legislative responsibility on the one hand and an independent judiciary and tribunal system on the other, if we mock and do not honour that rule in its entirety.

What the Premier has done is he has recited the rule in the guidelines. He has, in substance, deprived it of any significant effect in the three particular cases to which I refer. As I say, the ministers have behaved entirely properly, with one exception, but the Premier has not responded to the nature of the issue he has to address.

One could say, "Well, that is interesting enough." But he has gone further. He has tried to obscure the issue. When we ask him, as we have tried to do, about his standards, he immediately starts saying how terrible the events around the medical case in the college were. We understand that and we agree with him, but that is not a response to the problem. The reality is that if he is prepared to permit intervention with the judiciary of the type that has occurred in these three cases, in good causes, in good cases, he will have to permit it in bad cases as well.

I can imagine the excitement and concern that government members would have if a group representing doctors, for example, had tried to put pressure by writing letters to the discipline committee of the college of physicians and surgeons. But surely if that is not permissible -- and I believe it is not under our independent judicial rules -- we cannot permit people to put pressure who speak for what we regard as a good or appropriate cause. The place those causes are advanced appropriately is in the Legislature and in the executive. They cannot be advanced by politicians bringing them to the attention of the tribunals.

I connect what is happening here with another phenomenon about which I am very concerned. My concern may not be shared by everybody. I do not hesitate to refer to it in the presence of the member for Victoria-Haliburton. There is a developing sense, particularly in a party that has never been in government before, that the law is simply an institution to be applied and enforced where you approve of it. The reality is that that proposition does not stand any legitimate scrutiny.

I understand those advocates of civil disobedience who feel in isolated incidents that civil disobedience may be required. But you know, it was for me a shocking thing when a member running for the Legislature of Ontario and the man who was going to become Premier of the province went out to break the law. I know they did not like the law and I understand their view. They were better placed than almost anybody in the community to effect a change in the law. But they decided they would break it. Because they judged their cause to be right, and maybe it was right, they thought they had done a good thing. The Premier himself, in so many words, has said so in defence of the member for Victoria-Haliburton. That is not a way to order, because if good men and women may break the law, it follows that people who exhibit intentions that members may not approve of may also break the law.

I am very troubled also in one other respect that we have seen in the last few days about the reaction to the statements made by the House leader and the minister for women's issues, of which I totally approve. I am told -- I cannot believe it is true -- that one of those ministers went to North Bay within a day or two of that occasion and heralded her performance, that she had said what she wanted to say and it had not cost her her job.

I was shocked to read in the paper where Judy Rebick, well connected with the government party and a candidate for the party in the last election, announced publicly to the press that what we needed was not less interference with judges but more interference with judges, that what the minister for women's issues had said was not only right but that it was right to say it. The minister had confessed here it was wrong to say it, but the government's followers out there are getting the wrong message from what it is doing.

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Here we have today a column from Michele Landsberg. I like and admire Michele Landsberg and had the honour to appoint her as one of the first members of the provincial judges' appointment committee. But here she says, "Ministers' Actions Show 'Right Stuff.'" What she is saying is, whether a law of Parliament was broken or not in interfering with the judges, that is the right stuff and we need more of it.

I think adopting this course is, over the long run, a very dangerous matter. The difficulty is that the Premier has not accepted responsibility for what has occurred. He not only denies that ministerial responsibility applies in at least one of the cases; he has not seen the matter as one for the responsibility of the government.

I simply say to the House right now, why are we where we are in this deplorable state of affairs? I believe we are where we are because the Premier of the day set a course for himself over the last five years that was extravagant, wrong and unjust. He came to office determined to implement a system of conflict that would reflect his standards. He found very quickly that he could not, and the moment he found it was the Solicitor General's case.

I believe that in his heart of hearts the Premier of the province knew what virtually every editorial writer and parliamentarian in the country knew: that the Solicitor General, in the circumstances, good man that he may be, had to go, on the doctrine of ministerial responsibility. The Premier said, "He had no personal responsibility." Of course he did not. You would not need a doctrine of ministerial responsibility if you had to show personal responsibility. So I think at that moment the Premier knew he could not work his system in a context where he had lost two ministers.

Some members may remember that in the question period that day we said to the Premier: "This is the turning point. This is the watershed. If you can't make your standards, difficult as they are, stick at this moment, you are on a slide from which you will never recover." The debate will be over tonight, but let me tell members that the slide will continue over the next four years. There will be further incidents. There always are. There is not a single government in the history of mankind that is capable of getting through a five-year term without having ministers who make serious mistakes.

What has happened is that the treatment the Premier has given to these three cases has effectively destroyed his capacity to act in the future. What is the case that will attract a resignation if it is not one of these? Can members imagine a case of interference with the judiciary that is more pronounced than these? Of course they cannot.

Where are we now? Here is where we are. We are debating a motion. The motion is going to be defeated, because the government benches are full of people loyal to the Premier, anxious to give him another chance; some ministers who are delighted at the turn of events that have transpired here, their jobs now having become totally secure; and a lot of would-be ministers who recognize that in light of the precedents that have been set it is going to be harder to get in there, because fewer are resigning, but easier to stay longer because there is no account for being thrown out. So what will happen? The debate will be closed and the resolution will be rejected. That is the first thing that will happen.

The second thing that will happen is that the rule of intervention in judicial tribunals is, for practical purposes, a dead letter. We must face that reality. It is almost inconceivable to imagine that it could now be enforced in an effective way in light of what has happened. I believe it is a serious failure of public and legislative administration of the very type that Dalton Camp referred to. It may not be as serious for those of us who are unemployed as the lack of work; it may not be as serious for those of us who are on welfare as the failures of the welfare system; but in terms of our body politic, its traditions and public respect for it, it is as fatal a public administration flaw as can be imagined. So the rule, at least in so far as judicial proceedings is concerned, is probably a dead letter for this Parliament. It will lie for the next Premier, whoever he may be and from whatever party, to respond by creating a new one.

I just want to make one other observation. No doubt the Premier, if he were here, would say I was vengeful, but I cannot help thinking of Joan Smith and Chaviva Hosek and the member for Oriole when we debate this issue, because none of them did anything wrong and they were hounded from office by stopping this House from working for days and days in an era when the bells could ring indefinitely. I can tolerate that -- that is the parliamentary system; not at its best, perhaps at its worst -- but what I find most offensive is when this Premier, a man I admire in many ways, goes around the province doing two things: announcing his new standards and criticizing my leader, David Peterson, for having no standards.

Mr Mammoliti: That is easy to do.

Mr Scott: It was easy to do. The honourable member is right. It was easy to do when it was done, but let me ask my colleagues in the House: Who is it who has standards when one of the premiers puts those who breaks the rules out of his cabinet, and the other puts those who break the rules in places where they cannot be touched? I think the former person has standards and I think what we now know -- we did not know it in September and we did not know it two years ago, because we just had a talk from the Premier of Ontario -- is that in fact he has not got the determination on these matters to take the tough decisions that David Peterson, unhappily and bitterly from time to time, and under great stress, in fact took, day by day over six years, at the urging of the Leader of the Opposition. I think that is what Dalton Camp means when he says that the Premier of Ontario, for all his many attractive qualities, has no talent whatever for public or executive administration.

I just want to add one other thing, if I may. The unique feature of this Parliament is that come to government for the first time is a party that has never been in government in the province. In many ways it is more of a movement, as it itself is proud to say from time to time, than a party. It seems to me that has created a difficulty for it and for the Premier, because we get so tightly allied with the causes for which we want to advocate -- and many of the NDP members come to politics from advocacy positions -- that we believe it is possible to do anything, even break the law and the rules, to advance those advocacy positions. That is what Judy Rebick meant when she said what she said the other day. That is wrong. I believe that a mature NDP government will come to a different view about those issues. I believe that the government, for example, of Allan Blakeney in Saskatchewan, which was a mature NDP government in the sense that there had been others before it, benefited from that experience.

But my friends there are going to have to take their party, their movement, through this hegira to maturity. Government is not a receptacle for advocacy. It is not a place to ride hobby-horses. It is not a place to listen to some but not others. It is not a place to have preconceived notions about who should benefit from legislation and who should not. The members there will have to take their party through the various stages so it can become a mature party, comfortable with the act of governance, as I do not believe, in good conscience, it is now.

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One of the first steps they are going to have to take on that road, it seems to me -- and others have trod the road before them, so it is well travelled -- is to recognize that the parliamentary rules must be applied and the consequences attached to them must be applied. To say that the rule will not be applied is, as the Premier said in 1986, to say that in substance there is no rule at all.

So I say to the Premier -- who perhaps is watching on his TV set or may see it tonight -- that in a strange way this is a kind of watershed for his party. I am concerned because I know the man and I believe him to be a good and honourable man, but I think the Solicitor General's case was a point at which a different turn in the road could have been made and, if it had been, the rest of his governmental experience, in terms of conflict of interest, would not necessarily have been easier, but would have been closer to right than the course of conduct to which we are now committed which makes the rule respecting judicial institutions almost a dead letter.

I say to the Premier, who will know what I mean, that yesterday when I asked him about Joan Smith, I did it not because I could not think of a third part for the question, but just to see if for a moment he could say, "Yes, I understand what you mean, Mr Scott, and I've been in government now a while and things are a little different than I thought they were, and maybe I cannot apply the standards I sought to impose on others." But, defensive, he shied away and that moment of potential candour, one of which we had had from the Leader of the Opposition only as recently as the last sitting day before, entirely escaped the Premier of the province. It was, for me, a very sad moment.

But he will know that it was a great French writer who said that the measure of one's quality as a public person is the gap between what you do and what you say, and there is no other standard that amounts to anything. I hope the Premier and the party that supports him with great devotion and determination, which I understand, will bear that in mind. We are at a watershed in the history of this government and of our province.

Mr Stockwell: When this first appeared on the order paper and I read it, I was reminded of the last few days of the campaign -- walking around my riding, knocking on doors, and I had somehow gotten hold of An Agenda for People. I was flipping through it one night before going out knocking on doors again, because some people had some questions about the policies and initiatives of the Conservative Party and the Liberals and this new document that they had seen or heard about or read, called the Agenda for People. At that time, I thought the Agenda for People was somewhat misleading, deceitful and, in fact, impossible --

Mr Drainville: Oh, Chris.

Mr Stockwell: That is what I thought at the time. I thought it would be impossible to implement, and I think I have been proven correct, because I do not really believe you can find anything in the Agenda for People that has, in fact, been implemented to its truest form.

When the question was put to the Premier or the Treasurer at that time, their response often circulated around recession and deficits and the horrendous fiscal position the Liberals had left for them and, although I do not think even in the greatest of times they could have been implemented, I suppose at that time it could be taken as a sane and rational approach. The argument was always put up, "You didn't fulfil your promises and you didn't keep your word."

I was reminded also during those days in the House about 5 or 6 July when the then Premier, Mr Peterson, called the election. I was at the cottage and I was watching it on TV. I was astounded that the leader of the New Democratic Party came into the press conference and called the then Premier a liar for not fulfilling his campaign promises which was, in my opinion, a rather tough statement to make. But again, it was a statement that really stuck with the then Premier and it was tough for him to shake, because this government today had put itself in a position different from any government in the past. It had said: "We are pure, we are righteous, we are sanctimonious. We will do things differently and have an open and accessible government and we won't backtrack, we won't speak out of both sides of our mouth."

Those two things came to mind that day when the now Premier, then Leader of the Opposition, called the then Premier a liar. About three or four days before the election I got myself a copy of the Agenda for People and was overwhelmed with the document and how there was not any prayer, in my thoughts, that it could be implemented. But again, the Premier has backed away from those and I think he has done it very technically well, tactfully well.

I do not think there was a big problem in the public pre-budget about the Agenda for People and how they could implement it. The danger we have here today, the problem with the conflict-of-interest guidelines, the difficulty the Premier has with this issue is this: It is immune from the recession; it is immune from any extraneous forces; it is immune from any outside influence. The decision and the positioning of the Premier can be documented very clearly, openly and honestly. A few of the past speakers have quoted some of the words, and I sometimes think in the House to hear some more words, that we can stuff down the Premier's throat. That is really what it comes down to because he did say them. He made these statements and you just take them and you ram them down his throat, because they are so contrary to what the Premier is saying today.

The statements begin in 1983 when the budget turned up in a garbage bag outside a printing plant. "Rae was unequivocal in demanding Treasurer Frank Miller's head. If sometimes these doctrines of ministerial responsibilities mete out a justice that seems a little tough in the circumstances, that's the way it has to be." A noble man like the Premier was very clear on how he would have handled that incident.

I say to my friends across the floor, there was no personal gain for Mr Miller, none whatsoever. All that happened in that particular issue was personal loss for the Treasurer. There was no benefit in him leaking the budget, just loss. Yet the Premier was very clear on how he would handle that issue.

In 1989 the Premier demanded Solicitor General Joan Smith also be fired for intervening with the Ontario Provincial Police on behalf of a family friend. "We shouldn't have a buddy system or a new Family Compact in Ontario. Mrs Smith made a very serious mistake. She should resign." There again was no benefit there, none whatsoever.

When the Premier became Premier his guidelines changed dramatically. If the Premier is truthful and upfront, he owes Joan Smith and Frank Miller an apology, a very sincere and heartfelt apology. He also owes Mr Peterson an apology because there was no question about the way he attacked those people when they were in the exact same predicament. It was a vicious, vindictive attack. There was no room for negotiation. There was no room for "Let's be fair." Do you like that one? He is always using that, "Let's be fair." When was the Premier fair when he was on this side of the House? When Joan Smith had to go, was he fair then? I think not. I do not think he was even remotely fair.

Now we are faced with a series of ministers who have made some mistakes. The question is, did they benefit from those mistakes? Of course they did not benefit from those mistakes. I doubt very much in the next little while members are going to find too many ministers who are going to have a conflict of interest where they benefited. It is very rare where that happens. Occasionally it does, but it is very rare. The last few have not benefited, before the Premier's government. The question is, who determines whether the minister benefits? Who makes that decision whether you can impede or get involved in the judicial system? Who makes that determination? The Premier makes it, and if you happen to be advocating a position or a policy he agrees with, you are off the hook.

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My friends, that is a very difficult, dangerous approach to use to conflict of interest, because this government is going to find itself in a very awkward position one day when one member is going to intervene and some other members are not going to like the issue. Then some members are going to say, "Dump him or her," and the others are going to say, "No, you should keep them." Why is that? Because this government does not have conflict-of-interest guidelines that are not debatable. When I say "debatable" I mean if you or your staff write a letter to the judiciary or you intervene in a quasi-judicial board, you must go. The Premier said you must go before he got to that side of the House.

The two ministers of the other day -- and I applaud them for their actions. I really do not know either one very well at all, but they appear to be very hardworking, diligent ministers of this province. But when we end up debating this, the member for -- I forget the riding -- Oxford stands up and talks about the budget, for goodness' sake. The member for Oxford talks about this government not turning its back on the people of this province. This government has totally, completely missed the issue and suggests why the people on this side of the House are so upset. Why are they so upset about this government's position on this issue? I will tell members why we are upset, or at least why I am upset, because in the past this government had a very clear understanding of how it would handle issues such as this. It made no bones about the fact that people should go when issues arose like this. It was very clear in telling the Premier of the day, "We cannot stand for that, that minister should be out." The very first opportunity this government has to prove its mettle, to prove that it is different, it changes the guidelines; unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable.

In a way I can see some of the members who were not here before laughing, because I can understand they really do not understand what is taking place today. But the cabinet ministers who are sitting here today must feel absolutely silly. The Attorney General and the Minister of Agriculture must feel like complete imbeciles. They must feel everything they stood for on this side of the House has completely washed away. They must think everything they stood for and spoke about is gone. Do members not see the hypocrisy in it all? Do they not see the double standard? Anybody could see the double standard. Put the black and white before your eyes and read it. Anyone would see the double standard.

Hon Mr Hampton: Why do you not talk about Mashat for a while?

Mr Stockwell: The Attorney General says, "Let's talk about Mashat." If I were in the federal House, I may well be talking about it, but I am not. The question is about the ministers in this House and their attitudes to conflict of interest. If the Attorney General feels comfortable with the decisions the Premier has made, then I feel very sorry for the Attorney General because when he was sitting on this side of the House, everything he said was not worth a pinch of that stuff they find in the woods.

Interjections.

Mr Stockwell: I get somewhat upset with the comments made by the members opposite. They suggest this is different. They suggest their government is different. The problem is their government is not any different at all. I believe they have written conflict-of-interest guidelines that are very harsh and very difficult to follow, they are nearly impossible to follow. But the humour in this is the only minister who did not break the conflict-of-interest guidelines written by this government's head honcho Premier is the only one who got kicked out. The member for Welland-Thorold did not break a single conflict-of-interest guideline and he got dashed, and now everyone else who has broken them is still there. The member for Welland-Thorold must be scratching his head. It is very questionable interpretation their Premier has when he has half a dozen who break the guidelines and stay, and one person who does not goes.

Does that not make them stop and think how believable and how credible these guidelines are and how believable and credible their Premier's interpretation of these guidelines is? For their own sakes, for goodness' sake, for those who may end up in cabinet one day and for the couple or three here who are in cabinet, it is within their best interests to ensure that the Premier writes very clear and interpretable conflict-of-interest guidelines, because if he does not, they are going to have a never-ending saga of public fights and public displays about whether a minister broke a conflict-of-interest guideline.

This open and accessible government; this government headed by the man who accused the then Premier of being a liar; this government that wrote the Agenda for People and promised to implement it; this government whose Premier said today people are sick of politicians who speak out of both sides of their mouths, it had better buy some mirrors. It is going to have to start looking at itself because that is exactly what it is becoming. It is the sad erosion of a socialist government which is by far the worst in the previous three or four administrations when it comes to conflict-of-interest guidelines they are breaking and ministers who should be dashed.

They are the worst. They must have eight ministers in the last nine months. It is a shame their Premier stands up and suggests the people are tired of politicians who speak out of both sides of their mouths. If the Premier is watching, please read Hansard when he dealt with Joan Smith; read Hansard when he talked about Chaviva Hosek; read Hansard when he talked about Ken Keyes; read Hansard when he talked about Frank Miller, because we are not trying to be as fair as he was. That is his complaint. He was never fair, he was vicious and vengeful and I think today is a kind of reverse justice and he deserves everything he gets.

Ms Harrington: Today I believe we all agree we are discussing a very important and timely subject, the standards of conduct in government and also the confidence of the people of Ontario in this government.

When I read the printed motion of the member for Bruce, I note it says "standards of conduct" and that the word "traditional" is juxtaposed to those words. I believe it is clear the people of this province do not want politicians in the traditional sense at all.

We all know the word "politician" has now, and has had for some time, a negative connotation. The public is saying, "Things must change," and very clearly this message was given last September. Traditional politicians are no longer wanted, very clearly.

I remember on the campaign trail last summer, on public debates, saying, "No, I will not be and I am not a traditional politician." What are wanted by the people of this province, I would hope, are real people who are not insulated from the real world by limousines, liquid lunches or luxury.

At the heart of why the public is unhappy is a concept of power. This is a very difficult concept. In the course of human history, much grief and good has been caused by this. First of all, when trying to come to grips with this concept of power, one can become too accustomed to it and that will lead to abuse. I believe one must respect the power one has earned by coming to this place, and that a very key part of respecting that power is to keep in touch with those people, those issues, those reasons and that drive that made one run for this office. We cannot come here and abandon those people who inspired us to come here, those reasons we are here, whether it be environmental groups or single parents.

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About a year ago I took a young woman with five children down to the police station so she could try to lay a complaint against the police. I could not believe the state of this woman's life. She had been so intimidated and humiliated all her life that being able to speak out was almost beyond comprehension.

I will listen to those types of people, not just the rest of the people in my riding who know how to get things done and who with a phone call have access to me or to city hall. I also want to listen to, represent and speak out for those other people.

We are talking about the use and abuse of power here. I am certainly not a lawyer, but I am speaking from my own personal perspective. I believe people can understand that line between use and abuse of power. Use is to help others; abuse is to help oneself.

Things are changing. That cannot be denied. First of all, the old boys' club is in retreat. It is now acceptable in this House to show emotion, cry and believe in what we are doing. Politics is not a game of saving face or one-upmanship. It is now acceptable to change one's mind and to be a human being. There is an openness. It is very difficult to make these transitions. I think we understand that.

Power, I hope, is now trying to be shared or given away, not concentrated in one place such as this. This is called an empowerment of people -- examples we talk about all the time are women, natives, disabled people -- to participate in the life of this province. I submit to the members that this is a victory for democracy. It is very difficult, it is very slow, but we are trying.

We are also here discussing this government and whether it has the confidence of the people of Ontario. I submit that the people of this province have given confidence to this government. Why? Because it is so patently obvious that this government is different. The most powerful force in the world is inertia, to continue in the way things have always been done. It is very difficult to change, but we are trying.

Second, the reason people have given their confidence to this government is that we have moved forward on our agenda to try to improve things for the people of this province. In many areas there have been significant changes. About six weeks ago or so I remember thinking to myself, what have we done? Have we gotten somewhere? It was a very difficult time with the bells ringing here, and it seemed our afternoons were just disappearing on us and nothing was accomplished. Now, just in the last week or so, looking at the past year I think there have been significant differences not just in legislation, but in feeling and in the reality of life for people in this province, in the place of women in our society, in the place of the rights of tenants and in respect for the environment. All of these changes are very difficult and yet I believe they are substantial.

I submit to the House that a politician's job is not to preserve the status quo, but to have a vision and the courage to somehow struggle with openness and integrity to move towards this vision.

The Acting Speaker: The official opposition has requested to save the remaining time for wrapup. We will now go to the Progressive Conservative Party.

Mr Cousens: I would like to start by questioning the source of the confidence motion. As it is coming from the Liberal Party in Ontario, one would think that before putting such a motion, the party would have the cleanest record possible. They would not have a moment to say, as they do in this motion, "a total disregard for the standards of conduct traditionally adhered to by cabinet ministers."

The fact of the matter is that when the Liberals started off, it was assumed they were just as clean as could be. It would seem that the people in Ontario have forgotten about the Hall of Shame. The Hall of Shame describes what went on for the longest time with the Peterson government, and because it had a honeymoon for such a long period of time, everybody just said: "Don't worry about it. David Peterson is doing so well we don't have a thing that's going to happen. We're secure. I can go and call an election when I want even if I don't need to because we're invincible."

Now the Liberals come along with the same kind of motion that tells the world they are talking out of both sides of their mouths. For once I agreed with the Premier today when he said to the member for Bruce, "You're just talking out of both sides of your mouth." How can the Liberals come into the House and tell us, "They're acting with great disregard to standards," when you go through it? One of the reasons the Leader of the Opposition stood up the other day in the House in defence of the member for Scarborough West and the member for Sudbury East had to do with the way the then Premier dealt with the Christine Hart situation.

Was that the way he wanted to see it happening? Were the Liberals seeing the kind of leadership from our Premier that we saw from Mr Peterson then? How straight was he? How hard was he? How good was he? I think it showed a sense that was really lacking. Maybe he was looking for a little bit of that kind. But look at Christine Hart and at Gordon Ashworth, executive director of the Office of the Premier, who resigned his position on 22 June after it was learned he had accepted a free refrigerator and a house painting job from a Tridel-related company, reportedly arranged by that hyperactive Liberal bag lady Patti Starr.

Interjection.

Mr Cousens: Okay, but there is another one.

Then we have the whole situation around Patti Starr. The Liberals stonewalled that one for so long, as if it was not even there. I tell members that last 6 September the people of Ontario suddenly woke up and said, "Our summer's being wrecked by this guy that says everything is perfect," and all he had to do was remember Patti Starr was there in the background. I have a memory of Patti Starr every day when I go into the fridge because we have a little magnetic sign on our fridge that says, "This refrigerator was not provided by Patti Starr."

I often think of the Liberals. We can go down through the list: Joan Smith, Raj Anand, Ken Keyes and René Fontaine and the whole story around him. There is something we could talk about in this House. We spent a lot of time talking about it.

Mr Scott: What did you do with your Patti Starr contribution?

Mr Cousens: Control that honourable member for St George-St David. I think it is feeding time for him.

The husband of the then Minister of Health was involved with things and everybody said, "Oh, don't touch that one." Well, we touched it and she had to resign. It was not a voluntary resignation; it was something we in opposition forced on them and it happened; the same thing with Joan Smith and those others.

Mr Scott: She was found innocent.

Mr Cousens: Innocent -- the kind of judgement the Liberals are making on everybody else should start at home. When they think of what they are themselves, then maybe they can cast a few more stones. Those in glass houses should not throw stones, let he who is without sin, and so on; but there we go. I just thought I would have a moment to think about the Liberals.

Mr Scott: I guess we'd rather have you here than in the pulpit.

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Mr Cousens: I am glad to be here in order to at least challenge the Liberals to remember their past. When they bring forward a motion like this, let the people of Ontario not forget that the Liberal Party, under David Peterson, was not perfect and that it would put on the same kinds of pretences the Premier's group is putting on right now. Something seems to happen when they take power. When they come along and put on the mantle and cloak they think they are something special.

These guys did it wrong. They did it badly. The people of Ontario spoke on 6 September, loud and clear. I have been there when they spoke to the Conservatives in Ontario too and I know what it is like. None the less, there were different circumstances. It did not have to do with the integrity of government and it did with the Liberals. One of the outstanding underlying issues had to do with integrity of government. The way they dealt with issues had to do with calling the election when they did.

Let's just look at these guys across the way here. I would not want to spend all my time on just these people who have created a little history of their own for Ontario. We have a rogue's gallery here at Queen's Park. We have one member who does not turn up too much any more and two ministers who went down to Hamilton and opened up the whole situation about a cabinet decision ahead of time. It was luck of the draw that it happened just before Christmas. If it had happened at any other time in the sitting of this House, there would have been such an ongoing protest and outcry from everyone, not only on this side of the House. Christmas spirit came in and there were enough people who said, "We're going to be rising; we'll get out of here." The Minister of Transportation and the Minister of Colleges and Universities would be history in cabinet right now on the basis of what they did with regard to the releasing of secret information from cabinet and the way they dealt with people in the Hamilton area.

Then we go and look at some of the other ministers. There are situations with the Minister of Citizenship; a situation with the Minister of Community and Social Services; the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations is fired; and the Minister of Health resigns. This outcry regarding the Solicitor General, which is the basis for the motion the Liberals have presented, really has people thinking about his poor answers, the ability of a government to just stand up and say, "Now that we're in power we don't really have to deal with the issues."

And now we have the other situation with regard to the two women ministers who offered their resignations last week, the way the Premier has set aside dealing with why he did not accept their resignations and how members opposite have not been able to differentiate, that the two ministers did something that may have been right but that by doing it as cabinet ministers they were really forgetting about these guidelines that had been defined and delineated by the Premier.

The Premier set himself up by saying, "We will have the most rigid, the very best guidelines you have ever seen." It was assumed he was going to enforce them. He was going to do it so well that there would be no chance of corruption or erosion of values by the New Democratic government in the province. When he said that, people wanted to believe it. Yet what we have seen in the very short period, since this government has taken office, is an erosion of those values and just a setting aside of those very important terms of reference.

Mr Turnbull: They're called Spandex guidelines.

Mr Cousens: Yes, we are talking about those Spandex guidelines. It is situational ethics, as the member for Nipissing, the leader of our party, has described it, where they are able to do what they want, when they want and how they want without really any regard to the accuracy of their dealing with the issues at hand.

In our country and in our province there is increasing disenchantment with the political system. My public and the government's public, the public we serve, has less and less regard for politicians and for the way in which we not only deal with values, but with situations. People are looking for people of high standing to take office and then fulfil the terms of that office in an honourable way.

Since this government has taken office, it has been able to cast aside the promises it made. Why did the motion not deal with the broken promises of this government, because the public of Ontario has no way of getting at the New Democratic government for another three or four years, depending on when it wants to call an election. They are not going to miss being here for every vote that counts. We have no way to force this government to backtrack and go to its promises rather than change the tune every day according to what it wants to do. The people of Ontario made a dreadful mistake on 6 September. They elected a New Democratic government, and though we are stuck with it, we are going to keep fighting and trying to teach a few lessons on how to be honourable and do a good job.

The Acting Speaker: This terminates the time allocation for the Progressive Conservative Party. The honourable member for Cochrane North.

Mr Bisson: South.

The Acting Speaker: Cochrane South. Sorry.

Mr Bisson: I am South. He is North.

It is I guess with a certain amount of reservation that we find ourselves in the position of having to debate this motion, although I do understand it.

I would like to touch on something the member for Markham said and also my colleague the member for Niagara Falls touched on, and that is the whole question of cynicism on the part of the voters out there. I think, justifiably so to a certain extent, the voters of this province and the voters of this country and probably most of the free world are fairly disgusted, for good reason, in regard to how they perceive their politicians.

Interjections.

Mr Bisson: Excuse me one second. I listened to their debate. They should listen to mine. That is the idea here, okay?

Interjections.

Mr Bisson: There we go, Mr Speaker. It proves the point.

The point is that people out there are cynical of their politicians, I think for good reason. We have the convenience of having these procedures televised. Every person in this province is able to tune in and to watch what we as politicians, who are representatives of the people, are able to do, and what they tune into sometimes, quite frankly, is fairly revolting.

Nobody in this House on any side of the House can be claiming that we are perfect when it comes to the way we conduct ourselves in this House. It is very difficult at times. You sit here as government members, as the Liberals understood five years before, and the Tories for some 40 years. You put your best step forward in order to be able to serve the people of the province in the best way you see fit, and see at times people criticizing, sometimes for pure political gain, and nobody has a monopoly, no party has a monopoly when it comes to being clean on that issue.

I think what the people of Ontario are saying to us, and I think what the people in Canada are saying generally, is that we have to change our attitude somewhat as politicians. We have to be respectful of the voter out there and we have to respect that the voter is infinitely more wise than sometimes we give him credit for.

The due process of our democracy is that we go back every four or five years and we go to the people and we ask them for a mandate. The people give us a mandate based on the thing we talk about, not only during an election but the things we believed in as a party for years within this province or within the country, for that matter. Then they expect our politicians to come into this House over the next four years and to try to deliver on some of those promises.

I think most parties and most voters would understand that no government, no matter how well intended, could move on every piece of legislation that it would want to be able to do. I think, in respect for the official opposition, in the five years that they were on this side of the House, they came in with very good intentions of being able to serve the people of this province and along the way tripped up and made some mistakes, the same way the Conservative Party before them was in the same situation.

For me as a government member to sit here and to say I as a government member am totally infallible and will never make a mistake would be totally ludicrous. We have to remember what we said to the people of the province when we came to power. We said, "We are going to admit if we have done wrong and we will come clean," and that is exactly it.

The issue here is that some people, especially within the opposition, because it advances their political argument, if a political party in government decides to change its mind on a particular issue, let it be a particular bill or an amendment to a bill, it is seen as being an admission of not being able to govern.

I say no. The people of the province have said quite loudly for the past number of years that they want to have direct input on their governments and they want the opportunity to say to their government of the day: "We may agree in principle on the bill or we may not, but we'd like to have some changes here. We'd like to adjust this," or "We think it's good," or "We think it's bad." Then they expect the government to make a decision.

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I think this government has demonstrated, such as on Bill 70, we heard the voice of people within a number of sectors within our society who said they had some fundamental problems with Bill 70. I as a government member and I as a social democrat who really felt it was very necessary to put those points forward in that bill had to stand back and say: "Listen, it is not only my point of view as a social democrat that counts in this picture, it is the point of view of every Ontarian, to be able to come forward, to be able to give presence to the committee and to say 'I agree' or 'I disagree and I expect you to amend.'" That is exactly what this government did. It amended its own legislation in light of the people of this province.

For the opposition members across the way to say that is weakness, I think they are gravely mistaken, because the people of this province have said quite loudly and quite justly that we have to listen to the voter, and in the end we have to be able to adjust our position to suit the needs of the voter.

What the opposition is doing is quite clear. Our party did the same thing when we were in opposition. The parliamentary system, because of the way it is structured, and I think it is a sound structure, has an opposition to criticize legislation of the government. But there is a problem when it goes past that fine line of being able to criticize constructively to trying to criticize for political points. Again, no political party has a monopoly on that one either.

The strategy of the opposition is quite simple and it has become very evident, I think, to most people of this province. The opposition wants to try to say the government is not able to make decisions on particular things because it changes its mind when it goes out and consults the people of this province. Somehow that is supposed to be seen as a weakness. I would say that is a strength.

They would also turn around and say that we are, for some reason when they are talking about conflict-of-interest guidelines, somewhat more crooked than they were.

Let's take a look at the facts of what happened with the ministers of the crown from the time of the election and the time we were sworn into cabinet until this point today. We had two ministers last week that spoke from the heart on an issue that I think most people in this province felt very strongly about. I would put it that most people in this province would have probably gone past the point that our two members did, maybe would not have only written letters but may have gone a lot further than that.

Yes, there is a grey line when we talk about the power one has as a minister or a member of the government to be able to do that, but I think what people recognize is that politicians are asked to advocate on behalf of the people who voted for them and on behalf of their constituents within this province. To say that because the ministers did what they thought was right and to say, "We want their heads," I do not think would serve any public good. I tend to agree with the leader of my party and with the government on that particular issue.

As we take a look at the situation with the Solicitor General, a staff member who was there for six weeks wrote a letter, without the knowledge of the Solicitor General, in regard to a situation that happened where some 70,000 people in this province received parking tickets that were not supposed to be theirs because of a mixup within a particular computer. The computer spit out a whole bunch of parking tickets to people who were never in the city of Toronto, and somebody came into the constituency office and said, "This is wrong."

As members of all sides, we understand what advocating is about. Advocating is about trying to make a wrong a right and saying: "There has been a mistake here and we want you to turn your attention to it. We want you to address the situation and we want you to give this person their fair day. We want you to give them what is rightfully coming to them."

The opposition looked at it in a different light. Why? They looked at the political points they are able to score on this particular issue. What is even more interesting, and the member for St George-St David mentioned it, is that it is a question of, we were so mean to them when they were in government, now it is their turn to be mean to us. That is basically what it comes down to.

It is not the issue, because the issue is nothing. We have a minister who did no wrong. We had two ministers the other day, again who did no wrong, they did basically what was just, what most people understand as being a very just cause. But the problem is that the members across the way are very sore about 6 September because they realize they lost the last election, not so much because of particular legislation but because of the attitude they showed to the people of this province that they were not listening and that they could go ahead and get involved in the Patti Starr situations and be in a situation where the voters, for some reason, did not matter.

Yes, this government is very conscious on that issue and we want to make sure that we listen to the people of this province. We want to make sure that if we do something, we are not inflexible, and we will not change our mind just because we are the government, we will listen to all sides and in the end we will make a decision and we will make the best decision available to us, based on the presentations before us. We will not be inflexible, and when we have done wrong, we will admit so.

At this point I am being handed a note saying "Your time is up." I leave the time for the rest of my colleagues.

Mr Drainville: I am glad to rise in the House and speak today on this motion of non-confidence in the government.

I must say it is a rather lamentable situation we approach when we hear some of the things that have been said by certain members here today. I want to put aside partisan sympathies for a moment -- although one member over there is incapable of doing so -- and talk a little bit about where I am coming from in this debate.

I am a new member. I acknowledge that freely. I have not had the kind of experience that the honourable member for St George-St David has had, nor some of the members on our side. There has been a lot of history in this place, I might say, as someone who has been out of this House for a lot of years and looked at the debates around Frank Miller and around Chaviva Hosek and around other people who were on the firing line and, I have to say, even in terms of our own party at that time, saw the at times unjust way in which such ministers and such members were attacked. I say that as someone who was outside the House at that time, but I have to say also that we, as members in the House, have got to rise to a new sense of unity and spirit.

It is legitimate, by all means, in the parliamentary forum to question a minister on how that minister is functioning, and when that minister has committed an error or has somehow gone beyond the bounds of the job he is meant to do as a minister of the crown, it is not only the privilege of the members opposite to bring that case to debate but it is their prerogative and it is their responsibility as opposition members to do so. I do not gainsay any member on the other side of the House from bringing up these issues as they have been brought up over the last number of months.

I want to say also I have no vested interest in saying anything to the opposition members except this: There have been mistakes made by members on this side and by ministers and those mistakes are difficult mistakes because they were made by people who have been attempting to do the best they can. We have entered into government in a situation we had not anticipated, and indeed we find ourselves at a time and a place when there are great needs in the society and in the province. We find ourselves in the situation of having to be under the gun in many different areas. In the midst of that, with problems all around us, trying to respond to the needs and the aspirations of all the people of Ontario, we have made mistakes. I would like to speak a little bit about that.

There is very little forgiveness in this place for mistakes. I say that not against the opposition members, but indeed I say it about all the members of this House. As we look at some of the acrimony in the debates that have gone on over several issues, not the least of which being the budget, I have noticed at times a certain mean-spiritedness in the House which I think is bad -- bad not only for the members of this House but bad for the people of Ontario, because as they look here and they look at the debates that are taking place and as they look at the issues that are being discussed, they realize in fact that the mistakes that are being alluded to and sometimes attacked are mistakes that ultimately are trifling. I say ultimately. That does not mean you can absolve them. They are mistakes and they need to be dealt with, but ultimately they are trifling mistakes.

I want to also draw the attention of the House to the fact that the honourable member for Etobicoke West during his speech talked about the reverse vengeance that was taking place. He smiled and was so happy about the fact that he had an opportunity to nail the Premier again.

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Mr Stockwell: No, I did not say that.

Mr Drainville: I use his words.

Mr Stockwell: No, those are not my words.

Mr Drainville: "He deserves everything he gets." That is a quote.

Mr Stockwell: That is not saying "nailed."

Mr Drainville: Okay, I take back the other statement gladly. What he said was, "He deserves everything he gets." It is that mean-spiritedness that I am speaking about. The reality is that he has every right as an opposition member to say to the Premier of the province, "I don't like the decisions you've made. You have made poor decisions and I want to make sure the people of Ontario know the kind of poor decisions." He has a right to say that. But what he does not have a right to say, in terms of the spirit of how this place should operate, is that there is a necessity for vengeance against what the Premier has said in the past.

I hear the cacophony of sound, the lugubrious outpourings of the members opposite. They are very good indeed at indicating to the government and indicating to the Premier all the problems, but what of the unity of this House? How are we to work together if, when we are trying to move forward on our agenda, as we try to work with people in the province, we hear the kind of vengeful statements that are being made by the member opposite?

They talk about the truth. A little while ago members opposite spoke about the truth. The honourable members all know that they are wedded to the truth, and like all wedded couples they live apart sometimes. In fact, truth is not something that is represented very well at times by any member of this House, because we are so involved in partisan debate and knocking each other that we do not have the opportunity to listen to what other members are saying.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order. The member for Victoria-Haliburton has the floor, very legitimately. Please allow him the opportunity of speaking.

Mr Drainville: Again, what the opposition thinks is an attack on them was not. What I said very simply was that the member for Etobicoke West had invoked vengeance on the Premier for what the Premier had said in the past. I do not find that very edifying, I do not find it decorous behaviour, nor do I find it particularly helpful to the debate we are trying to pursue today.

I would like to say also, not to leave the Liberal Party out of this, that there is no question in my own mind that the comments that were being made by the member for St George-St David, measured though they were, have some of the same spirit that I am concerned about. For instance, he mentions former ministers. He mentions Chaviva Hosek, he mentions Joan Smith, he mentions other ministers who have had difficulty in the past. One thing he said was accurate: that the opposition -- that is, our party at that time -- was unmerciful in its attack on those ministers. That is true; we were unmerciful. I might even say -- and I do not think it would be breaching any confidence or any understanding that we have on this side -- that sometimes we were not only unmerciful but we went overboard in making sure that members --

Mr Stockwell: I see. When it's your ministers we shouldn't be vengeful.

Mr Drainville: The point is, the present fetish we have in this House for mean-spiritedness and attacking ministers and dragging on day after day as if the only way we can make the government do its business is by attacking it, does not make any sense.

What I would like to say to the member for Etobicoke West, because he keeps on speaking out and trying to get into a debate -- he had his turn, but he wants another turn -- is that of course the member for Etobicoke West has the right to question the government, of course he has the right to criticize the government, of course he has the right to do those things, but he does not have to do it constantly in a state of saying that he is vengeful. "It's time for the Premier to get his comeuppance." That is what he was saying, and it is not acceptable in this place.

I want to say also that the standards that are set, macho though they are, patriarchal though they have been, about how ministers are to be treated in this House make no sense in the world today. To say that when ministers make a mistake like those which some of the ministers in our government have made they should resign every time those kinds of mistakes are made, makes no sense.

Mr Turnbull: What about Frank Miller?

Mr Drainville: The honourable member for York Mills yells, "What about Frank Miller?" Frank Miller did not resign.

Mr Stockwell: You wanted his resignation.

Mr Drainville: But he did not resign.

Mr Stockwell: You wanted it.

Mr Drainville: But he did not resign. What I would like to say to the honourable members is that what they are trying to do is have me protect what the former opposition party, the New Democrats, did in years past. I am not willing to do that.

Mr Turnbull: What about Joan Smith? We are talking about a double standard, Dennis. No wonder people are sick of politicians when you have double standards.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. The member does have the floor very legitimately and you are really interjecting when interjections are not in order. You will have your moment in the sun. The honourable member for Victoria-Haliburton, please proceed.

Mr Drainville: The point I want to make is that we are in a period of deep political change. People are not expecting any more to see cabinet ministers who are thrown out of office merely because any politicians from any party or any side of the House call, "Off with their heads." There is no reason why cabinet ministers have to resign for such reasons.

That does not mean that there are not good reasons to ensure that cabinet ministers do what they have to do. When the opposition says we have to ensure that the government is responsible, that is its job. But when they demand that, every time, in the smallest of insignificant events, a member of the cabinet needs to leave, that is totally unacceptable.

Whether you look at the honourable Minister of Health, who resigned, whether you look at the member for Scarborough West or whether you look at any of the other members, what you see is that those people did not receive any benefits from what they did. They made an error, they acknowledged the error, and to have resigned from the cabinet is a totally unacceptable expectation.

But why do they not accept that? This is the real question we need to deal with, and I will sit down after this last point. Why is it that the opposition demands that these people must resign? I have to say, because there is a tradition and it is a tradition that needs to end, and the sooner it ends, the better for the people of Ontario. This tradition says we have to call for the blood of every minister who transgresses whatever strange attitude or set view the opposition feels. They are the arbiters. We were in the opposition and when we were in the opposition we did the same thing, but it seems that the opposition is the arbiter for every decision that needs to be made about the future of any cabinet minister, and it cannot work that way.

The people are expecting changes in this House and in the government of Ontario, and the changes they are expecting have nothing to do with the piddling, insignificant issues that have been raised continually in this House. What they want to know is, when will the people of Ontario be able to have support from and begin to believe in the members who sit in this House? As we hear the acrimony and lack of unity and catcalls from each side of the House, the people of Ontario are saying: "This is not what we want. We want a Parliament which will represent our views, which will listen to the people of Ontario and which will ensure that it responds to the needs and aspirations of all people." The way that we will do that is by providing it through leadership in each and every constituency, so that every member of this House will begin -- rather than being mean-spirited, rather than being totally critical all the time -- to work together for the betterment of all people, and until that begins, we will continually have these kinds of debates.

1740

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: The interjections -- please. We will have a chance to vote. I realize we do not have consensus on this issue. We will have a chance to vote later, and you can express your opinions then.

Mr Huget: I am going to take a slightly different approach to the issues we are discussing today. As a new member, I have to say that the series of events that have unfolded over the last little while have been very disturbing to me as an individual, not being experienced in the partisan politics world and not being experienced in the blood sport of politics in this House. But I was elected and ran for office, I believe, as all members of this House have done: to represent their constituents, to conduct themselves honestly and with integrity. It is based on that that I, as many others in this House, on all sides of this House, took the opportunity to run for office and, indeed, we are elected today to represent our constituents.

It is a rather sad commentary that when a staff member makes an innocent mistake both parties turn almost like a pack of hounds on a staff member in an office. There was no devious method or motive in any staff member or their office. It was a legitimate, honest mistake, which we admitted forthrightly and honestly on every occasion. We have tried to deceive no one. We have tried to be as honest and open as possible, and we will continue to try and be as honest and open as we can.

This government was elected to change the way things are done in Ontario, to deal with some of the issues that have been experienced by the people in this province under the guidance and governorship of the Liberals and the third party. We will continue to make a change in the way government operates in this province, and we will continue to be as honest and open a government as members or anyone in this province has ever seen.

Hon Mrs Coppen: I would just like to take a few moments to express my opinions of our government. I am proud of the achievements of our government. Before I elaborate on the accomplishments, I would like to share some personal experiences.

Before 1 October, many of us had never been in government before. That does not hamper anyone in the province of Ontario from sitting in this House. My own experience was as an advocate, much like many of my caucus. We fought for the rights of the people in our community. We listened to them. They gave us their confidence -- not like other governments. They took that chance. They gave us the greatest gift they could: their vote to make us the government of Ontario and their confidence, something that we treasure.

One of my first experiences here at Queen's Park was a brief tour, an opportunity to lobby some of the ministers of the opposition and, yes, to protest on the front lawn of this beautiful building, and what did we protest? We protested harm to working and average people of this province, and I sincerely believed in that. I am an advocate for people, and that is why I came to this House, to fight those battles.

When the people gave us that right, we came into this building. I ran up those stairs, those first steps of opportunity to be a new government in Ontario, and when I walked into the rotunda I had to stand back in awe. It is a beautiful building. It hit me with almost the same feelings of the non-confidence that we felt from the opposition, non-confidence with the deficit, a deficit --

The Acting Speaker: The government's time has run out. Thank you very much.

Mr Curling: I want to thank you very much for giving me this opportunity, first to tell you that I am in full agreement with this motion of want of confidence for this government, which has demonstrated a total disregard for the standard of conduct for the judicial system.

I consider myself a very strong and vocal advocate for the rights of those who have suffered from discrimination practices or other human rights abuses. The last speaker said she is an advocate. I want to say to members, I have actively fought against discrimination throughout my life. Indeed, I have suffered from discrimination practices and I was never able, nor were most of the people who have suffered like this, to articulate it and tell members precisely how that hurt is. I felt so strong about it that I ran to be placed in this Legislature so that changes could come about. I believe in the system. I said to myself, "I could go out and get a gun and I could shoot all those who are discriminating," and I said, "That's not the way." I thought, we have a system here, a democratic system, a process in which we can change. We got elected on that basis.

Those people on that side are no more advocates than the people on this side. They are no more advocates than the member for Carleton, who fought to get smoking out of public buildings. He did not take up any guns. They are no more advocates than the member for Ottawa East, who fought for francophone affairs. But he decided to come in here and change it to the way it is properly done, not to interfere with the justice system and say, "I more passionately believe than the forces you have."

It is disgraceful. It is awful, when I stand here, and I think my privilege as a member has been insulted because they feel they have advocated themselves as a greater advocate for the causes in which they carry on. There are people outside there -- I know that blacks have been shot and they felt the judgement that had been levelled against them was inappropriate -- who have phoned me and asked if I could interfere and I tell them no, because there is a process for it.

Rushton is still preaching his awful ideology to our children in this province. Is there an interference? Where are the members opposite then to say he should not be preaching like that in the school, this racial thing they are doing in London? Where is the interference? Where is the Minister of Colleges and Universities? Who will say, "We shall stop him today," because he should not be doing that. There are people who are being streamed every day in education that is not appropriate to them. Where is the Minister of Education on that?

There are people who feel today that the Ontario Human Rights Commission has not actively promoted and been able to hear their cases because it takes five or six years to do that. Is the minister interfering? Is she less an advocate than those who have interfered?

I will say to the minister that she is conducting herself appropriately, the Minister of Citizenship, the minister responsible for the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and she should not follow those who have violated the justice system by interfering. I do not condone the two ministers who interfere. I think it was terrible. They have done more injustice to that cause than anything else. They have done not only injustice to those sexual abuse causes, but in spite of all of that, the system stands strong and the judge has ruled accordingly, as he should.

I hope they have learned their lesson. I hope they have come to respect the process. I hope they see that a democratic process that has been built on for hundreds of years is not destroyed by this so-called claim that they are the God-anointed advocates of this world. They are not. Every one of us is an advocate here in respect to the law and order of this country. If members opposite feel they are above that, if they feel they can lie in Temagami, get applause after their civil disobedience and decide that is an appropriate way to go, these people should not be the government. They should resign.

1750

The House divided on Mr Elston's motion, which was negatived on the following vote:

Ayes -- 42

Arnott, Bradley, Brown, Callahan, Carr, Chiarelli, Cleary, Conway, Cordiano, Cousens, Cunningham, Curling, Daigeler, Elston, Eves, Fawcett, Grandmaître, Harnick, Henderson, Jackson, Jordan, Mahoney, Mancini, McClelland, McGuinty, McLean, Miclash, Murdoch, B., Nixon, O'Neil, H., O'Neill, Y., Phillips, G., Poirier, Poole, Ramsay, Ruprecht, Scott, Sola, Sorbara, Stockwell, Turnbull, Wilson, J.

Nays -- 68

Abel, Akande, Allen, Bisson, Boyd, Buchanan, Carter, Charlton, Christopherson, Churley, Cooke, Cooper, Coppen, Dadamo, Drainville, Duignan, Farnan, Ferguson, Fletcher, Frankford, Gigantes, Grier, Haeck, Hampton, Hansen, Harrington, Haslam, Hayes, Hope, Huget, Jamison, Klopp, Kormos, Lankin, Laughren, Lessard, Mackenzie, MacKinnon, Malkowski, Mammoliti, Marchese, Martel, Martin, Mathyssen, Mills, Morrow, Murdock, S., North, O'Connor, Owens, Perruzza, Pouliot, Rae, Rizzo, Silipo, Sutherland, Ward, B., Ward, M., Wark-Martyn, Waters, Wessenger, White, Wilson, F., Wilson, G., Winninger, Wiseman, Wood, Ziemba.

The Acting Speaker: The government House leader has moved adjournment of the House. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I heard a no.

All those in favour will please say "aye."

All those opposed will please say "nay."

I declare the motion carried.

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 1802.